Chronicle of Darkness 2nd Edition

infernal engines -dramatic systems 100 Equipment Equipment, tools, and technology help to solve problems. Having the right tool for the job can mean the difference between life and death, or, in the Chronicles of Darkness, the difference between life and a fate worse than death. This list is not all inclusive, but features many of the tools that characters in the might have at their disposal. Equipment is divided up by the Skills with which they typically assist. Mental Equipment typically assists with Mental Skills, for example. Additionally, Supernatural Equipment deals with the paranormal, and may not be suitable for every chronicle. Lastly, Bygones are items that characters cannot procure easily or recreate. They’re unique items that deal with the otherworldly. See p. 268, in Appendix One, for equipment and service listings. Availability and Procurement The dot cost of a piece of equipment reflects directly on the Resources cost if your character wishes to purchase it (or the cost of components, for some things). It also reflects the level of Allies or other Social Merit required to find the item, and the Skill level required to procure it with a single dice roll. For example, if a Party Invitation has Cost •••, a character with Larceny •• should not be able to find and steal the item without a dice roll, but a character with Politics •••• might be able to get one by virtue of saying the right words to the right organization. If your character wishes to obtain higher Availability items with their Skills, it requires a deeper effort. Size, Durability, and Structure These are guidelines that represent common, standard examples of the items in question. For most items, characters could procure better examples, at a higher Availability rating. Dice Bonuses Most equipment offers a bonus to dice rolls pertaining to its use. Multiple items can influence a given roll, but a roll should not receive more than a +5 bonus. Game Effect A character with the item can use these Effects. Any restrictions, costs, or parameters are listed individually. Building Equipment The reverend’s wife isn’t what she seems. She claims to have been saved by a miracle, but you know better. You know she isn’t the reverend’s wife at all. Something else took her place. As you learn more (and wish you hadn’t), you discover that whatever the monster is, it sends and receives radio signals. You guess monsters can upgrade to the twenty-first century, too. You think maybe you can expose it to the congregation if you overload its receiver with interference. All you have to do is modify that old walkie talkie set your dad has in his garage. And pray. Equipment Types While many characters can gain access to equipment of all kinds through purchase, borrowing, blackmail, or theft, some prefer (or are forced) to make it themselves. In this context, the word “equipment” refers not only to physical objects like weapons and tools, but also anything else that can be created by a character to help him out with an action he wants to take. If it would offer a bonus to an action, or would make actions possible that were previously not, it can likely be considered “equipment.” Five types of equipment can be built: • Physical Objects: The most common type of equipment. Most of the items found in the Appendix (p. 268) are physical objects, as are weapons and armor. Creative works also fall into this category. • Organizations: A small group of people assembled to address a particular need. A small cult and a cadre of bodyguards are good examples. Organizations built as equipment usually disband after one game session unless the player purchases them as Merits afterward. • Repositories: Any collection of research materials and knowledge sources. A library of books, a database, and an assortment of security footage all count. A character doesn’t need to build a repository to benefit from an already-existing source; this only reflects the activity of gathering materials for repeated future use. If the player purchases the Library Merit for a repository she built, the Merit stacks with the equipment bonus, to a maximum bonus of five dice. • Plans: Characters can “build” a plan to orchestrate a complex encounter with a specific goal involving multiple people, like a heist, a raid, or a rescue. If successful, this piece of “equipment” grants its bonus to everyone involved, but winks out of existence as soon as the plan definitively succeeds or fails. The Storyteller shouldn’t force the players to come up with every little detail of the plan —abstraction is what the dice are for — though if the players are gung ho about the particulars, that’s fine too. • Mystical Equipment: Anything that carries minor supernatural potency, such as a circle of protection using salt and bone, a protective amulet, or a werewolf trap made of silver, counts as mystical equipment. For more rules about using a spirit’s bane in wards and other rituals, see p. 138.

Building Equipment 101 To Roll or Not to Roll Building equipment should never take more than the time between one scene and the next. If it can’t reasonably be built in a few hours or less, the character needs to acquire it another way. This system isn’t meant to cover building a car from scratch or getting an entire business off the ground — it’s for creating solutions to immediate problems. Building truly supernatural relics is beyond the capabilities of characters presented in this book. If the character has plenty of time, isn’t under any duress, and has dots in the relevant Skill equal to the equipment bonus a standard example of the equipment would provide, no roll is necessary. The Storyteller simply determines how long it should take and it’s done, either with some roleplay within a scene, or it’s stated to have happened between scenes. However, if the character is under pressure to get the job done before that werewolf picks up her scent, or while she’s under attack by enormous slavering spiders, the player needs to roll. Likewise, if she’s trying to build something that’s beyond her casual expertise (i.e., something with an equipment bonus greater than her dots in the relevant Skill, or something the Storyteller determines is too complex to be made without a roll) then the dice come out. The Storyteller may also call for a roll if the player wants to build a more impressive version of the equipment that has higher traits than the standard example. The Build Equipment Action The type of equipment the character builds determines which dice pool to use. Most physical objects use Wits + Crafts, or Wits + Expression for creative works; organizations may use Presence or Manipulation + Socialize or Streetwise; repositories usually use Intelligence + Academics; and mystical equipment usually uses Wits + Occult. Plans are a slightly different animal, and require a Wits + Composure roll. The Storyteller or player can suggest alternatives if appropriate. The Build Equipment roll always takes a penalty equal to the intended equipment bonus. When the equipment is meant to grant other benefits, like a new function, an increased trait, or access to a resource, each benefit counts as a one-die bonus for this purpose, as well as to determine whether a player needs to roll in the first place. Weapons impose a penalty equal to their weapon modifier, and armor imposes a penalty equal to its highest armor rating (general or ballistic). As usual, this penalty can’t exceed -5.

infernal engines -dramatic systems 102 The Storyteller may require the use of Resources, Contacts, or other Merits, or a separate research action, to reflect putting effort into securing the right materials, contacting the right person, or having enough specialized knowledge to build the thing to begin with. This should only apply when the character wants to build something particularly complex or potent and it would enhance the drama of the story to do so. The Storyteller shouldn’t use this as a hoop the player must jump through, but rather as a way of introducing interesting plot elements to an action. However, when it comes to mystical equipment, these rules don’t replace the need to discover a creature’s bane first; the best a player can do is an equipment bonus or minor benefit without that information. Dice Pool: Varies Action: Instant (Special) While the Build Equipment action is instant and thus requires only one roll and one success, the actual game time that passes can range from a few minutes to a few hours. It’s up to the Storyteller how long it takes, though in most cases the measurement of in-game time doesn’t matter much — the only important considerations are whether the action is finished before something else happens or not, and how many other people’s actions occur in the interim. If a Build action occurs during an action scene, the number of turns it takes to complete is equal to the penalty the roll takes for the equipment bonus and benefits, although it still only requires one roll. Some Build actions are impossible during action scenes, like convincing a room full of people to join a character in peaceful protest, or gathering articles for a research database. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether a Build action can be completed during an action scene or not. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character fails outright, and suffers some negative consequence. It could be taking damage from an explosive reaction, gaining a negative Condition like Embarrassing Secret or Leveraged, or leading a supernatural threat directly to the character’s location. The Storyteller should devise a consequence appropriate to the circumstances. Failure: The character successfully builds the equipment, but it carries the Fragile or Volatile Condition (see below). Success: The character successfully builds the equipment and anyone can use it as normal. Exceptional Success: The player may choose to add one bonus die or one other benefit to the equipment. Equipment bonuses still may not exceed +5. Equipment Conditions Unlike most Conditions, these follow the equipment itself. Any character using the flawed equipment suffers this Condition until resolved. The Storyteller and player should work together to decide whether Fragile or Volatile is more appropriate to the equipment in question. Generally, organizations, plans, and ephemeral mystical equipment like warding circles are better suited to Volatile since they cease to exist soon after they’re created anyway, while other types can go either way. FRAGILE The equipment the character is using to aid his action won’t last long for some reason, whether because it’s an object put together with duct tape and bubble gum, or because his relationship with the people involved sours, or because his computer ends up suffering a blue screen of death and the data is corrupted. A plan may be Fragile because of disrupted communication between the characters, or because of an unexpected hurdle, etc. The equipment ceases to exist in any usable form after a number of uses equal to its creator’s dots in the Skill used to build it. Possible Sources: Achieving a failure on a Build Equipment roll. Resolution: The equipment falls apart one way or another. Plans grant one Beat to each player whose character is involved when this Condition resolves. Beat: N/A VOLATILE The equipment the character is using to aid his action is ready to blow at any moment, figuratively or literally. One wrong word, one badly-placed rune, and it’s time to duck and cover. A plan may be Volatile because it backfires terribly, or because a Storyteller character betrays the group, etc. Any failure achieved while benefiting from the equipment is automatically a dramatic failure. The equipment may continue to exist after this Condition is resolved, but if so, its equipment bonus is reduced by two dice. This can create equipment penalties if the original bonus was fewer than two dice. Possible Sources: Achieving a failure on a Build Equipment roll. Resolution: The character suffers a dramatic failure while using the equipment. Plans grant one Beat to each player whose character is involved when this Condition resolves. Beat: N/A Jury Rigging When you’re dangling from a grappling hook 30 feet above the cold concrete with an angry mob of gunmen on your tail, you don’t have the luxury of time. That Molotov cocktail you’re mixing gets done now or never. That’s where jury rigging comes in. Dice Pool: Varies Action: Instant Use the same dice pool you would use to build the equipment normally. A Jury Rigging action is a normal instant action that cuts out all the rest of the game time that Build Equipment usually takes. Every failure while Jury Rigging is a dramatic failure.

Building Equipment 103 The Storyteller may rule that some equipment is too complex to be Jury Rigged. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character fails outright, and suffers some negative consequence. It could be taking damage from an explosive reaction, gaining a negative Condition like Embarrassing Secret or Leveraged, or leading a supernatural threat directly to the character’s location. The Storyteller should devise a consequence appropriate to the circumstances, although in some cases, the natural consequence of the character failing to get himself out of a pinch is enough. Failure: As dramatic failure. Success: The character successfully builds the equipment, but it carries the Fragile or Volatile Condition (see above). Exceptional Success: The character successfully builds the equipment and anyone can use it as normal. Repair, Modifications, and Upgrades A character may want to fix or alter a piece of equipment that already exists. These actions usually only apply to physical objects, though exceptions are possible. Doing so constitutes making a Build Equipment roll as usual, but the penalty applied equals the difference between the object’s current state and the bonus or benefits the player wants to add. Broken objects are considered to have an equipment bonus of 0. Partially-functional objects may have a bonus only one or two dice lower than their usual bonus. So for instance, if a computer would normally grant a +2 to research rolls but won’t start and is therefore currently at a 0, the roll to repair it would suffer a -2. To modify or upgrade an object by increasing its traits or giving it new functions, simply treat each modification as a +1 equivalent. A character can replace one function with another at no penalty — for instance, reversing the function of a walkie talkie to cause interference instead of receiving signals. Modifying vehicles is beyond the scope of these rules and uses a different system, detailed on p. 99. Taking Your Time A player may choose to build equipment as an extended action rather than making the usual single roll, taking no built-in penalty to any of the rolls. Instead, the target number of required successes equals the total intended bonus and benefits of the equipment + one. Typically, players do this to avoid taking large penalties for complex equipment, or when they have small dice pools to begin with and don’t want to risk a chance die. The Storyteller determines the time between rolls as usual. See “Extended Actions,” p. 70, for further explanation. Overall success and failure work as normal for the Build Equipment action. The Storyteller may also allow a player to build equipment that normally lies beyond the scope of this system, such as a car or a business, with an extended action. In this case, the time between rolls and total successes required should match the effort involved. Building a car may take a week between rolls and require 15 total successes, for example. Storytellers should keep in mind, however, that it’s usually much easier to acquire such equipment in other ways, like stealing or purchasing a car, or using Social Maneuvering to convince a potential business partner to take the bait. As a result, building this kind of equipment with extended actions should only be done if the player really wants to make it from scratch. Examples of Play Meghan plays Cassidy, who’s trapped in a warehouse with something that has huge teeth and red eyes. She stumbles across a crate filled with office supplies, and Meghan declares that Cassidy wants to jury rig a makeshift chain weapon using rubber bands and staplers. Since the chain has a weapon modifier of +1 (see “Melee Weapons Chart,” p. 269), the Build Equipment roll takes a one-die penalty. Cassidy has Wits 3 and Crafts 2, so Meghan rolls four dice for the Build action and achieves one success. The Storyteller decides that the newly-built “chain” has the Fragile Condition and will therefore fall apart after just two uses. On Cassidy’s next turn, she successfully uses the weapon to grapple the creature, and keeps it pinned with the chain while she smashes a window to get out. Unfortunately, after one more turn of the creature’s struggles against the chain, the rubber bands snap and the creature chases Cassidy out of the warehouse and down the street. Meghan earns a Beat for resolving the Fragile Condition. A Storyteller character has been captured by a crime lord, and the player characters make plans to rescue him. They decide to build a plan as equipment to help them out, and the Storyteller rules that they must roll, since they only have two hours before the crime lord makes his move. The players describe a general idea of the plan, with a part for each character to play in the rescue, and the Storyteller decides the plan makes good sense and will grant a +2 to everyone’s rolls in execution. The character with the best Wits + Composure pool is the primary actor, and everyone else contributes with teamwork. The Build Equipment roll takes a two-die penalty and, with five dice left over, fails to produce any successes. The Storyteller and players agree that the plan carries the Volatile Condition, and the rescue proceeds as planned. During the rescue scene, one of the players fails a roll to sneak past a guard despite using the plan’s two-die equipment bonus, and it automatically becomes a dramatic failure. This resolves the Condition and causes the guard to sound an alarm throughout the crime lord’s mansion. The players each gain a Beat for Volatile’s resolution, and the player who failed her roll gains another for the dramatic failure. The “equipment” that was the plan is now done for, and the players must improvise to face the new complication.

Yevgeny is not a superstitious man. He’s not even a Catholic. All the same, the thought of doing this deal in St. Ann’s, deconsecrated though it is, makes him nervous in ways he cannot articulate. But this is where the client feels comfortable, and Yevgeny is nothing if not a full-service operation. The crate, old and rusted and stenciled “СОВЕТСКАЯ АРМИЯ,” squats before the chancel as though to accept absolution. “Yevgeny?” The voice is a woman’s, young. Yevgeny can’t see her clearly for the shadows of the cames. “I am. And you are the elephant hunter.” “Sorry, what now?” “Firepower like this, you must be hunting elephants. Or planning to overthrow a small government.” “You got me, I’m staging a coup against the East Bollingsworth Board of Alderpersons. Can we get on with this?” She tosses the duffel with the money into the transept. “That’s not enough.” “You didn’t count it.” “It’s what we agreed on?” “Of course.” Yevgeny shrugs. “Then it’s not enough. Extra complications. The price has gone up.” “That’s not going to work for me, Yevgeny. I’m on a timetable here.” “For your Glorious People’s Revolution of East Bollingsworth?” “Look, I get that you’ve got this whole Solntsevskaya Bratva thing going, and it’s working for you. But I need this now, and I need it for the price we agreed on.” “And yet.” Yevgeny’s smile says “terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but you’re alone and I have the automatic weapon, so what can you do?” Hers says “don’t make me do this,” but Yevgeny can’t see it for the shadows of the cames. “And yet. I have to confess, I thought something like this might happen. That’s why I bought a friend.” Ximena whistles, low and liquid, and the shadows rush away from her and fly shrieking at Yevgeny with his grandmother’s face.

black threads-storytelling 106 The group of people who get together to tell stories set in the Chronicles of Darkness using this book and others are players. At any time, players can agree to have one player take on the role of Storyteller to guide the story and take on special tasks to guide the group. A Storyteller is still a player, though her responsibilities to the group are different. Some groups find it ideal to stick with one Storyteller throughout the course of a chronicle, and give up some of their choices as players to experience more surprises and twists. That’s a great way to play. Some groups choose to rotate Storyteller responsibilities, keeping most or all of the story secrets either on the table for everyone to use, or undefined until they come up in play, holding on to more of their out-of-character choices and sharing the load of Storyteller responsibilities. Some groups give certain storylines to specific players, letting that player hold Storyteller responsibilities for that storyline, but allowing them to have a character in the game so long as they can only engage with other storylines. This is tricky, and requires that everyone works together and cooperates, but is often worth the effort. When using any of these methods, players can look at Storytelling less as a special and unique position for one person, and more as a list of things to do that players can handle singularly, in a group, or by taking turns. But what are those responsibilities, exactly? Here is a sample list, though your group may need more or fewer assignments than those covered here. It will also help if, as a group, you decide on any additional responsibilities you’d like to parcel out to one or more players in the group. Invisible Hands: Storytelling Responsibilities Provide Space to Play: This is often a Storyteller’s responsibility, but should it be? This is a good thing to go over with the group to help ease the burden on any one specific player. Leaving all the details of when and where to play to only one player can lead to burnout, fast. Food and Drink: If you’re gaming for any real period of time, are players responsible for their own food and drink? Is everyone pitching in to provide for the group? Again, these logistical details shouldn’t be taken for granted, and shouldn’t be left entirely to the game’s host or a central Storyteller. Establishing Setting and Theme: It can be tricky to do this alone, though traditionally it’s expected that a single Storyteller is totally responsible for this. However, figuring out the setting and theme for your Chronicles of Darkness games can be a communal experience, a conversation between players. Try starting with a piece of media, an existential question, or an urban legend you want to explore. Alternately, start with a strong “what if,” such as, “What if the covered bridge downtown really was haunted?” or, “What would it look like if Wall Street was actually home to roaming packs of werewolves?” Interesting Characters: Within the group, it’s everyone’s in the group responsibility to bring interesting characters to the game that will also suit the settings and creative themes of the game. Sometimes that means a player has to back off Black Threads: Storytelling For why do you despise my fear and curse my pride? But I am she who exists in all fears and strength in trembling. I am she who is weak, and I am well in a pleasant place. I am senseless and I am wise. -The Thunder, Perfect Mind

invisible hands-storytelling responsibilities 107 on a character concept that will be too difficult for the other characters to deal with. Other times, it will mean backing off on a concept that makes the other players uncomfortable. Typically, the final say as to what does and doesn’t fit at the table is in the hands of a central Storyteller. However, as a shared responsibility, consider a blind vote or an open discussion if any characters seem like they’d be more disruptive than challenging. Destroying the themes and vibe of a game, and making players uncomfortable out of character, is not actually subversive; everyone needs to work together to find better ways to create in-game disquiet and make the game interesting. Cheerlead for the Player Characters: Too often, having a separate and authoritative singular game master role creates an assumption that a Storyteller is somehow the enemy of the characters, and the antagonist of the players. In fact, any player acting as a Storyteller should be the characters’ biggest fan. This position doesn’t mean characters should always get what they want and never have anything bad happen to them. On the contrary, if the Storyteller is the number-one fan of these characters, she wants to see the characters challenged so they can grow. Since character growth is tied to Conditions and Beats, for them to grow they must be put in difficult situations. Think of challenging these characters, on some level, as nurturing them rather than attempting to destroy them. Storyteller Character Management: Depending on how you develop your chronicle, whether you use a chronicle starter like Missing Person, below, or find some other way to populate your chronicle, you will have characters that are not player characters. These are characters with dim spotlights, whose agency is often focused on propping up the player characters’ stories. If the group is sharing Storytelling responsibilities, Storyteller characters may be left up for grabs, letting any player bring them into play in a specific scene. In that case, any secrets they hold or motivations they have should be on the table, though not abused as out-of-character knowledge. The best way to reflect these open secrets and keep the characters consistent is to give them Aspirations, so if a player is temporarily taking control, they get a better idea of how to motivate the character. Even if a group is using a single, dedicated Storyteller, she might assign some players Storyteller characters as side characters to manage and motivate, which can help keep the world feeling alive and populated. Storylines: As mentioned before, a single Storyteller can hold all the secrets and present all of the challenges in a storyline to considerable success. Conversely, these storylines can be broken up between any number of players or left as open plot kits that any player can pick up and use at any time. Scene Framing: You can read more on scene framing later in this chapter. Storytellers are often handed all the responsibility when it comes to “Where do we go next?” and even “What do we see?” Of course, pitching scenes can be put on rotation, with players taking turns deciding not just where the story should move next physically, but tagging which storylines they want to follow up on or which characters’ struggles they want to explore next. Providing Regalia: Having character portraits, maps of the city, journal entries, and physical representations of clues or puzzles can do a lot for a game, and providing regalia is some next-level Storytelling if you’re not used to it. Printouts, fake newspaper articles, and so on can be exciting and provide additional sensory input. However, this doesn’t have to fall entirely on a single Storyteller, especially if players are sharing storylines or managing Storyteller characters. If you bring a real puzzle box to a game session and put it on the table, simply saying, “Let me know if you manage to open that out of character,” then, one way or another, players will find a way to bring that puzzle box into the game’s story. Spines What holds your scene upright? What gives you the frame and basic shape on which to hang the moments of roleplay, action, and exploration? What makes up the skeleton of your chronicle, which holds the meat and muscle of your stories? Simply put, it’s your scene framing. The scenes themselves, how they play out, and what your characters do is the meat and skin and connective tissue, but how you frame scenes helps to hold the rest of that up. Weak scene framing means that the meat of your story hangs limp and feels disconnected from moment to moment. With a strong, flexible, healthy spine, though, you can build and grow your chronicle. Pitching the Scene: First, you need to pitch the scene to the table. “Pitching” makes it sound like you’re giving players the choice of which scenes to follow through and what they want to explore next. That’s correct, and in fact, whenever possible, invite players to pitch scenes when you’re stalled or they’re brimming with ideas. To pitch, you want to suggest a place, a storyline to follow, Storyteller characters who can be involved or at least sought out, and which player characters should be in the scene to begin with. Once everyone agrees on the basics, you can start outlining the scene in a little more detail. Central Conflict or Theme: This is optional, but it’s a helpful step you can use whenever possible. As well as describing the who, what, and where of a scene, you can also frame it in terms of why. You can do this directly by saying something like “think in terms of lust and envy here,” or you can do it subtly through your descriptions, music you play lightly in the background, or other symbolic representations of the vibe you’re trying to create. It’s a great idea to quickly jot down what everyone wants from the scene, perhaps related to their Aspirations, and check in at the end of the scene to figure out who got what they wanted and who didn’t. What will that mean for the next scene? Lights and Camera: Set your scene. If you know where, who, and maybe a few other things, you can dress your scene with a few key details to suit the theme and mood. Describe it like the blurb in a screenplay if you like, with camera angles and lighting suggestions. Players eat these details up. The idea is that the physical aspects of a scene should never be left as a blank, white room. There is no such thing as a blank, white room, unless characters are literally in a blank, white

108 black threads-storytelling room, in which case you focus in on the sweat on people’s brows, the sound of heavy breathing, the glare of the lights, the subtle scent of fear-tinged sweat, and so on. In Medias Res: This is a classic fiction technique where the scene starts in the middle of the action. You enter the room, the musky smell of pot and sex filling your nose, and you know this is the right place by the strangely-familiar occult symbol on the wall. Suddenly, the door behind you slams open and someone in black body armor shouts, “Hands in the air, this is the police!” Afterwards, you can pan back, examining how characters got to that exact moment. You can also observe the scene for clues and missed nuances, as you would a still from a movie. Then, let the characters react. Similarly, you can cut a scene off in a way that seems premature, only to resolve it in a new, calmer scene. “Over my dead mother’s rotting corpse!” your enemy shouts, as he and his thugs pull out Uzis … and scene. It’s three hours later now, which one of you is injured, which one of you is fine, and who among you killed a guy? Would you like to argue in character, unpacking the scene that was just skipped? Connective Tissue: To complete a solid framework, you can cap off a scene in the same way you framed where it began. Check in with characters who either never came onstage or left early, ask players where exactly their character is going next, or describe the details they missed in the scene or an action from a Storyteller character that foreshadows trouble yet to come. Because this is connective tissue, any one of these scene-capping aspects can be a great springboard into the next scene. Also, never fear using phrases like ”meanwhile, across town in the central banking tower...” or ”unbeknownst to the characters, trouble was coming in the form of...” A good scene, framed well on the front and back end, makes every scene strong and helps your chronicle feel complete and constantly in motion. Pulled Muscles When you pull a muscle, it hurts like hell, but when it heals the muscle is stronger. When you fail a roll, it can suck like hell, but it sets a character up to be stronger. Here’s the math: players using a dice pool of three will roll one success for their character most of the time in a straightforward roll. Rolls are very rarely straightforward, and failure happens. Characters, player characters, and Storyteller characters will fail, even must fail, in order to progress a story forward. That’s as true in a Chronicles of Darkness game as it is in fiction. In many ways, players should celebrate failure, as it brings them one step closer to even greater success. Why Should Characters Fail? For strictly mechanical reasons, characters need to fail because failure is tied into the Conditions and Beat systems. It is therefore necessary for characters to fail to advance systemically. Conditions have a built-in buy in as many of them are resolved by players choosing to fail a roll before rolling it in order to end the Condition and take a Beat. That’s key

109 invisible hands-storytelling responsibilities here, as players should be given plenty of options to choose for their characters to fail. They should have control over it in some way, and remember that their character’s failure is empowering in more than one way. It’s in the Story To some players, “a sloppy series of endless tragedies which compound on each other until, ultimately, everyone dies alone” is an ideal Chronicles of Darkness game. However, that’s not for everyone. Of course, on the other end, competence porn where characters are always awesome and never suffer real setbacks is not in keeping with any Chronicles of Darkness game. A good story will appeal to a majority of players; let the players who naturally want to run their characters into the ground do so. And the players who are afraid of failure? Talk to them. Take their favorite movie, and examine the series of conflicts and setbacks the heroic characters experience and draw parallels with how you’d like the pacing of your chronicle to go. It’s a good idea for you to be familiar with several types of plot pacing, anyway. The best fiction puts the characters through a series of setbacks contrasted with rising action, so your chronicle should, too. Succeed at a Cost There are times when failure would really drag down a game, but the dice say that’s what happened. Sometimes when a Storyteller says, ”Well, just roll to see what happens,” and what happens is an inexplicable failure, you can always opt instead for a success but with consequences attached. This is also a technique to use when your player appears crestfallen when the dice hit the table and you may lose engagement from them. “Okay, the punch lands, but...,” “Yeah, she’s actually pretty into your sales pitch, but....” Give the player what she was shooting for, but tie it to something that’s going to sting down the road. Pick Your Poison It is always better to give your players more choices rather than fewer, because more chances to choose are more chances for drama and intrigue. A failed dice roll often feels like the end of a player’s choices, and carries with it a sense of finality. “Well, we didn’t find the clue we need, guess we’ll go do something else.” That’s not intrigue. Instead of a simple failure, give the players a choice, a difficult decision, one that affects the story going forward. For example, “You find the clue, but it implicates only you,” or, “You don’t find the clue and your case is at a dead end, but you’ve discovered a new, possibly-unrelated crime to investigate.” No Meat Wasted Sometimes, players get distracted and don’t perfectly follow a Storyteller’s leads. Players often don’t take the obvious path, distracted by interesting Storyteller characters, miscommunication about clues and details, or character exploration on which a Storyteller didn’t count. This is a good thing, and as a Storyteller you shouldn’t feel disappointment or frustration. The story follows the characters, not the other way around, and if you can keep that in mind, there are a lot of behind-the-curtain tricks that you and the other players can utilize to make the whole thing feel more cohesive, while avoiding losing any good material you’ve prepared ahead of time. Schrödinger’s Character If you’ve planned for a confrontation with a Storyteller character to happen at the bar where the characters are supposed to hang out, but which they’ve avoided for the third game session in a row, move the damned confrontation. Shuffle your Storyteller characters around if you need to, move clues or story details into your players’ paths, rather than worrying about the fact that you can’t force them into the right place for the right plot points. Any player can suggest moves like this; it doesn’t have to be a Storyteller secret. Also, you can drop it out in the open for everyone to act on. “Guys, Garry the Knife is coming for you, where does he surprise you?” Aspiration Inspiration Characters who sit on their thumbs aren’t exciting, tragic, or drawn into intrigue. If you can’t seem to motivate your characters to explore the various channels of the mysteries you’ve built on their own, then tie the whole thing to their Aspirations. You can do this by suggesting new Aspirations when they’ve satisfied old ones, asking, “Hey, did you guys ever get around to what happened to Sara? Is that loose end bugging your character at all? Sounds like a good Aspiration.” It’s okay to be direct. It’s always okay to be direct. You can also reverse engineer this, by finding a way to tie existing Aspirations to the path you’d like to guide your players toward. You don’t ever want to force them to deal with a story they aren’t interested in, because you never know why a player wants to avoid a storyline. It might be harmless, or it might be because you’ve created a story element they don’t want to deal with for personal reasons. This is why giving them a choice to follow their Aspirations is better than demanding or steamrolling them into following your plotline. This is particularly important in a Chronicles of Darkness game, which can go to dark places very quickly. Recycle the Waste You know that powerful letter you prepared for a dead Storyteller character to deliver as a ghost to your player characters? Well, it turns out they prevented his death, so that leaves the idea dead instead, right? Not really! After all, someone’s got to die sooner or later. Just change the wording on the letter and have it delivered by a different lost soul entirely. Nothing’s wasted! Conditions and Failing Dramatically Both negative Conditions and Dramatic Failures are ways for players to fail triumphantly, and for characters to grow

110 black threads-storytelling dramatically. They’re also tools for you to use to guide players to lost or unexamined material. Is the character terribly Frightened? Does that fear drive them from the current scene to somewhere more ideal for your lost material? You bet it can! And since the character will earn a Beat in the process of satisfying their Condition or their Dramatic Failure, they feel empowered instead of handheld into the next scene. That’s a win-win. Your Exquisite Corpse It’s an old game, where a player writes down a sentence in a story or draws part of an illustration, hides all but the last word or bottommost portion of the picture, and the paper is passed to the next player to fill in. After everyone’s had a turn, the whole thing is revealed and everyone has a good laugh at the story or illustration produced, a bit at a time, while all were blind to the whole. Because the Chronicles of Darkness uses open, communal storytelling it’s difficult to perfectly simulate a game of Exquisite Corpse, but using a story kit gets you part of the way there. They’re great to minimize the amount of heavy lifting put in by a single Storyteller, or to give players who don’t normally take on Storyteller responsibilities a way to ease into them. Story kits also help manage games that are asynchronous online or in live-action roleplaying, where one Storyteller isn’t quite enough to keep everyone entertained. It works like this: Decide on a situation that exists, a conflict between rival gangs, a haunted house, a local political faction turning extremist, a religious leader turning to violence in the name of his faith, or maybe an infection of a rare, supernatural disease. Once you’ve decided what the situation is, write it down. A paragraph will do. Follow it up with a paragraph describing why the characters should care; do it as a series of six or so bullet points, if you like. You can either target a few characters specifically, or keep it general and let the players opt their characters in. Shoot for an open-ended scenario. Next, describe three principal Storyteller characters that are either affecting or being affected by the situation. They may be the cause of it, they may be exacerbating it, or they may be victims of the situation. Describe what they are doing now and, more importantly, what they might do to escalate the situation and make it worse for the players. Then, give these key Storyteller characters Attributes and Skills just as you would player characters. Give them three strong Aspirations, with at least one relating to what they’re doing now, and one relating to how they’re going to make things worse. Finally, write two or three general characters who might be pulled into the story. For instance, cops called to investigate nonsense at the haunted house, protesters, gangsters, or what have you. Give these tertiary characters basic stats, focusing on dice pools rather than specific Skills and Attributes. Give them a short- and long-term Aspiration. Leave room for a third Aspiration after they’ve been used in play and given a proper name. Print out your story kit as a handout for all your players. In short, the Storyteller doesn’t run the situation or the story that spills out from it. The players do. Anyone can drag aspects of the situation or Storyteller characters from the story kit into appropriate scenes to get things moving or explore the situation in more detail. If there are deeper secrets within the story kit, such as who is responsible for the haunting or what’s really motivating the preacher, you should let them be decided on by the players in play, rather than be predetermined. Prick the Skin Let me suggest you aim for disquiet. Don’t try to frighten your players or disgust them and gross them out. Aim instead for disquiet, that strange place just left of normal. Set the situation slightly askew or odd. Make the situation mildly uncomfortable, rather than horrific, and let the players take their personal horror to the level in which they want to invest. This is another opportunity to let players opt in and participate with the darker themes with which they are comfortable. However, it also produces more successful, genuine horror than splatterpunk and snuff storytelling could ever hope to. Gore isn’t scary. It can gross a person out, when applied judiciously, and that can be a valuable tool in the Storyteller’s (or player’s) toolbox, but it’s not a replacement for real dread, and if you pile it on too thick, filling your scenes with vomit and pus and arterial spray, it loses its punch. You’ll feel a need to escalate the grossout factor higher and higher, and before too long you’ve lost the dread, become immune to the grotesque, and made the subversive mundane. No one wants that. It’s better, maybe, to leave things unseen. Leave evidence of malicious and gruesome deeds, suggest the chaos of the dark, tease at the face of the Devil, and let your players’ imaginations fill in the rest. Your players are better at frightening themselves than you ever will be, and while everyone might put forward their darkest fears to suggest directions in which to go to make the story scary, you can’t do it as well as their lizard brains can fill in the blanks. Leave room for the unexplained; describe the spot where the shadow falls, and let your players fill in those shadows with their own demons, instead. Aim for disquiet, aim for just off center, aim for subtle and growing dread, and horror will creep into the places you’ve made for it. Don’t slash the story’s throat open to bleed out in gushes; prick it, then ask, “Why does it sting? What is that creepy feeling just under the skin? Probably nothing, right?” Missing Persons: Creating Your Setting According to the FBI, in 2013 close to 670,000 people went missing in the U.S. alone. That means that, by U.S. population at the time, one in every 470 or so people went missing that year. That number is not likely to decrease, especially in the Chronicles of Darkness, where monsters are

111 missing persons-creating your setting real and breathing down our necks – when they bother to breathe, anyway. Also, that number only accounts for reported missing persons, when, in fact, plenty of people go missing and have no one who notices or cares enough to report it. Do you know 500 people? In your school, your extended social group and family? Your town? Your neighborhood? Using the Missing Persons system, you’re going to build your setting up around a missing persons case that happens in your characters’ lives, or at least in their area. Someone is gone and you, as a group, are going to examine your characters and their setting by the light of police flashlights, to a soundtrack of probing questions. The missing person does not need to be the focus, or even an important factor, in your story. So if you’ve already got an idea of the stories you want to create in your Chronicles of Darkness game, don’t dismiss using the missing person to build your setting. He can be a major mystery to unravel, or a tragic statistic that is of note only because you’re thinking about it, and then gone and forgotten as soon as the real story takes off. Your missing person may be a major player or a background element, depending on how the story goes. It’s important for you to stay flexible about this, of course, as players may naturally chase any mystery put in front of them. If you expect it’s just a background element, tell them so, or else end it quickly and sadly, or quickly and mysteriously, depending on the tone of your Chronicles of Darkness game. What You’ll Need: In order to create a missing person to get your chronicle started you’ll need players, character sheets, and basic ideas for the kinds of characters most of your players want to play. You’ll also need a big sheet of paper everyone can write on. You’ll be making a sort of map on this paper. A whiteboard also works. If you don’t have either of these, a pile of notecards will do, which you can write on and arrange. As the Storyteller, you’re also going to need to determine the scope of your game. Is it focused entirely in one high school that all the characters attend? Is it a whole urban sprawl? Or is it just one small, rural community and the truck stop at the edge of town? Determining the rough scale of your chronicle will help your players sketch out this map. Visual representations of that scale are also helpful; for example, a city map or the blueprints of an apartment complex. A list of names, covering a diverse range of genders, ethnicities, and ages can be helpful as well, so that no one gets stuck on naming Storyteller characters. Random pictures of people for inspiration can also be useful tools. How You Do It: While the players are creating their characters, ask them the questions about the missing person below. Each player will have to answer most of the questions, and add to the map that you’re creating together. This map will provide places, Storyteller characters, and relationships to start your chronicle out holistically, so everyone needs to participate. The less the players have predetermined about their character, the better this will work, unless the player is already aware of how Missing Person works, and are eager to get involved. You don’t have to answer these questions in any particular order, either. Jump around from step to step and player to player as it feels natural and organic. Just make sure everyone has most of the questions answered by the time you’re done so that the map is fleshed out, and everyone has hooks into the world in which your chronicle is set. The Missing Person Someone is missing. Who is it? In order for there to be a person missing, you need to determine who the person is and at least some of the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. A name is a good place to start or, if you can, a character picture or portrait helps the players start to string ideas together. Is she young or old? Is he rich or poor? Does it make sense they’re gone; are they the sort who runs off from time to time, or is their disappearance entirely out of the ordinary? Can anyone account for any part of it? Is there a stack of clues and witnesses to sort through, or is this missing person only barely noticed, a statistic, more than a person gone from their community? Putting it on Paper After the Storyteller puts a name, and maybe an image, of the missing person on the table, players can start to help define that person. Jot down about a sentence per player as they discuss the details of the disappearance. Try to keep all statements open ended, leaving room for conflicting evidence and the ambiguity of reality. “She’s really popular” is better than “everyone likes her.” Popularity can represent a lot of different traits and reactions, whereas determining how exactly people feel about her is limiting. “Police found a lot of blood at the crime scene” is better than “the fact that her blood was everywhere points to homicide” because again, it’s vague. If you can, avoid passive statements, too. If you’re about to put down a sentence that starts with “there is” or “there are,” try to reword it. Having people or things doing something is a lot punchier than having things be done to someone, and so, using the example above, “police found a lot of blood” is better than “there was a lot of blood.” Talk the players through disagreements or conflicting statements. Conflicting ideas can actually contribute to verisimilitude. If you think about anyone real in your life, does everyone in your life share that opinion? For every “funny guy” in your life, there are bound to be people who don’t get the jokes or aren’t amused by the behavior, and so it’s as easy to put down “hilarious” for the missing person as it is to put down “not very funny.” This is where direct and punchy statements really help. “The ladies think he’s a riot” says a lot more than “some people find him amusing,” and leaves room for “he doesn’t have many friends” without one canceling out the other. Instead, they paint a stronger, clearer picture of the sort of guy he is based only on how those two seemingly-contradictory ideas bounce off each other. Of course, as with all other steps in the Missing Person chronicle starter, you and your players don’t have to sit down and fill out each statement about the missing person right now. They can come back and add their own thoughts as the map develops. Just leave some blank space for new statements as they develop.

112 black threads-storytelling Try to avoid using more than one statement from each player. You don’t want to write out a huge biography of the missing person; you simply want a framework to connect to and some tantalizing ideas to build from. What the Questions Really Answer Why a disappearance and not a murder? A missing person leaves more questions in the mind than a dead body. After all, a body tells you “this person is dead, their story is at an end.” With a missing person, though, ambiguity of mood and tone means you can do a lot more with it as a story. A missing person is a story with, potentially, no ending. The story might act as a background element: sad, hopeless, and flavoring the rest of your chronicle. Conversely, it might be a tense emergency as the missing person is sick, needs medication, is a child, or any other ticking time bomb about to go off at any moment. Crime Scenes From where is she missing? Where did you see him last, and when? What spaces did you share with the missing person? Did you and the missing person go to the same coffee shop every Sunday at the same time for the last three months, and it’s only now that he’s missing that you’ve even noticed how frequently you saw one another? Did you see her last in your apartment, as she threw on her jacket and told you to never call her again? Where did you both go, but never actually crossed paths? The missing person lived in the same reality as your characters, whether in their town, block, or school. Whatever the scope of your chronicle, this missing person lived within it just as your characters do, and you’re better off anchoring all the characters in real, shared spaces. Putting it on Paper At some point while you’re building your chronicle map, each player should put down a location that will matter to the story. Start out with the idea that these locations are all tied to the missing person, but they must also each somehow tie to the player characters. This might be a place the missing person was terrified of, and your character needs to go daily, for example, or a place where you used to live together. These locations should also act as go-to locations when setting a scene or shaking up the storyline. Any one of these locations can be a great place for the Storyteller to trigger more action or sow seeds for character-driven plot as well. Sometimes simply starting a scene by saying, “Meanwhile, in the graveyard, something is stirring, something unnamed and forgotten,” can get things going. These set-piece locations should have a name, a one-sentence description, and a sentence describing both how the player character relates to

113 missing persons-creating your setting them and how the missing person once did. To strengthen the mood of any specific location, instead of a descriptive sentence, players might suggest a musical motif that would fit just as well. This is an excellent technique to anchor a place in the players’ minds, especially if you play the song quietly any time a scene starts in the location. What the Questions Really Answer Characters standing around in empty, white rooms in generic buildings, on stock streets in general towns can end up feeling dry and distant. If you focus in and dress the set with memories, moods, themes, and especially details, it becomes real and vital and can inform the story in ways you may not have expected. Vivid settings can help the Storyteller hang on to their passion for the chronicle and prevent the Storyteller from getting burned out. When players are debating whether or not they should take that Dramatic Failure, or how their Condition should manifest in this scene, having a good sense of the mood and details can inspire and encourage them. A rooftop is not the same thing as the grubby, rust-covered rooftop of an aging theater. The latter tells the player that things can fall apart, the structure may not hold, and hell, yes you should consider having your character fall off of something when she fails. Implication How do you know the missing person? Was he a good friend, or a lover? Was she a child or dependent? Is this disappearance keenly felt, or is the character somehow unaware of what is disconnected and broken in their web of relationships? Is the character knowingly responsible for the disappearance, or the catalyst for it? Is she the cause without knowing it? They might have been complete strangers, but because of the rule of seven degrees of separation, no life within your chronicle exists without touching others. This chronicle starter reflects the connections we see and don’t see, so while characters may not realize their direct ties to the missing person, the players should be aware of them. Putting it on Paper On your map, as spokes radiating outward, possibly from the locations described in the Crime Scene step, write each character’s name down. On the spoke, write a sentence describing either the direct relationship between the character and the missing person, or the effect their disappearance has on the character’s life, even if it’s on a level understood by the players and Storyteller, but not the character. If a player would like her character be implicated in the disappearance, that’s great, but try to keep this very open ended. Consider that “I’m pretty sure I killed her, but the body went missing so I kept quiet” is much more interesting and useful than “I killed her and hid the body.” Leave the mystery of the disappearance in, even in the case of direct involvement. Whenever possible, attach opinions and biases to these statements so they can stay ambiguous. “I think I made her run away,” or “Everyone blames me for what happened to him” are useful because they leave room for the player to explore how right or wrong those opinions are. They also suggest elements of personality for their characters, as well as how the outside world observes the character. The ways in which the outside world views the disappearance will be handled more thoroughly in a later section. What the Questions Really Answer This may end up being the step that is the most difficult for some players, as they are asked to open their character up to a communal worldbuilding step that not every player is used to. Encourage them gently, but remember that not everyone has to contribute to every single step. It’s one thing to decide as a group, “Hey, this person exists and is gone, “but it takes it to the next level to say, “This person is gone, and my character is somehow tied to this potential tragedy.” You are asking that player to be accountable, in some way, regarding what happens to characters that are outside the players’ control. After all, a player can’t spend Experiences to raise the combat stats of their character’s girlfriend, so getting attached means the player might be stung should something happen to her. That’s why it’s important that this step is optional, and not a hard requirement. If a player wants to get involved but doesn’t want their character directly involved with the missing person, that’s okay. It’s worthwhile to take a step back and look at the social ecology of the characters. Maybe she wouldn’t deal with a missing drug dealer, because she’s on the straight and narrow, but is the fact that it’s a drug dealer who’s gone missing a relief to or a burden on her beloved brother, a drug addict? Community Who cares about the disappearance? Who doesn’t care about the disappearance? Are there posters everywhere, candlelight vigils? Has the media gotten involved, putting the missing person’s face up on TV screens all over the city? If the missing person has family, what are they doing about the disappearance, and what are they telling people about the person who has vanished? A family and community that says “Oh, well, no one is surprised he’s gone,” assigns a tone of indifference to the local population that the characters may end up taking advantage of, or become victims to. A close-knit community can be a community that knows each other’s secrets and keeps them, or one that spreads them around. A disenfranchised community that minds its own business won’t be there when someone calls out for help. If a character shouts “Help, fire,” who will respond? Putting it on Paper This step can and should happen sporadically over the course of the rest of the chronicle mapping. Draw spokes out from the missing person’s name, and draw clouds, like thought bubbles in a comic. In these, with no specific attribution, write some rumors surrounding both the person and

114 black threads-storytelling the disappearance. These thought bubbles reflect popular opinion and local myth surrounding the events. They should be specific, but don’t need to be anchored to specific characters. “Everyone knows he was kind of a drunk” is acceptable. “The family couldn’t give two shits about her” is great, too. Don’t worry yet about what the police or other real authorities are doing about the situation; that’s a later step. In this situation, you’re just putting down things “everyone knows” without closely examining who constitutes “everyone.” These rumors don’t have to be true, though they may or may not have a grain of truth to them, and the ones that are true may be the strangest of the bunch, depending on the story of your chronicle. Even as you’re considering the opinions of the characters directly connected to the missing person, consider the outsider view rather than what the characters may actually be experiencing. So, if one of the player characters is implicated by a rumor, position the statement from outside of the character. Weaker language like “he seemed” or “maybe she” is perfectly acceptable here. Try to keep them short for the sake of space, but if you need to invent a quick urban legend about the rumor, just put a title down and put it on a note off to the side, or something similar. What the Questions Really Answer In a real, living community, be it tightly knit or loose and isolationist, everyone has opinions about the things they see around them. Perhaps they keep these thoughts entirely to themselves, share them only with close family, or mumble them to anyone who will listen. No matter how open or private they keep their thoughts about their environment and neighbors, many people couch these opinions in rumor and attribute the beliefs to “everyone” to avoid personal accountability. When a person hears rumors from the unknown “everyone,” they are most likely to only forward the rumors that align with their own existing beliefs. Thus, rumors are transformed, adjusted, and refined to fit the communal zeitgeist of the neighborhood population. Of course, as in a game of whisper-down-the-lane, or telephone, some strange ideas can sneak into popular opinion, making it hard to tell the difference between random hiccups in the chain of ideas and the truly strange Chronicles of Darkness truths. Authorities Do the police care? What questions do they ask you about the missing person? What don’t they bother asking? Who has the real power and influence here when it comes to looking into this disappearance? If the police aren’t yet involved, why? Is the case federal for some reason? Have the feds chased the local cops away from sensitive matters and taken the whole thing entirely out of the hands of those who live with and around the missing person? Is it a matter of a local authority, like the staff of a university or principal of a powerful private school, keeping things hushed up until they’ve managed damage control? Is this chronicle set in a prison, with a warden hiding not just this disappearance, but many like it? Putting it on Paper As a group, decide what the major authority is in this situation. You could put down two if you like, perhaps a powerful criminal syndicate that works in opposition to legal authorities, each with their own influence on the situation. Adding more than that gets complicated, and it’s generally better to let any complexity grow organically within the course of the game than to try to frontload the chronicle with several competing powers. This chronicle starter is about a missing person, after all, and not a turf war. A turf war may also be happening, but keep it simple. Next, allow each player to draw a line from the central authority or authorities on which the group has agreed to various people or locations on the map. On the lines, write out dates and facts that depict the authorities’ actions without saying much about their motivations for these actions. These details should be grounded in the setting’s reality. For Example: Location: Armed police investigators were seen investigating the abandoned chicken processing plant a week after the disappearance. Person of Interest: No one from the police has asked the missing person’s ex-husband any questions about his disappearance. Player Character: Members of the local crime family cornered the character and asked her some leading questions about the missing person, then left in a hurry. Location: Neither the cops nor the gang will go to this place for different reasons, so its truths remain unknown to them. What the Questions Really Answer In some ways, this step helps outline what the characters will and won’t be able to get away with as they go through the chronicle. Defining the in-game authorities and, more importantly, suggesting how they operate and what they care about, will guide the Storyteller and the players as to where they should focus the hands of justice. (Legal or illegal, most authorities have their own codes of justice.) This step helps to avoid questions like “Why did the cops get to this area so quickly when I fired a gun, but when I called 911 last week, the line was disconnected?” This is because it forces everyone at the table to consider what motivates the powers that be. People of Interest Who else knew the missing person? Who were her friends, acquaintances, and family? What about his enemies and those who meant him harm? These witnesses, suspects, and community figures touched the life of the missing person, but also have connections to the player characters. Are their bonds to the missing person strong and their relationships to the player characters weak? Are they the only real connection between the player characters and the missing person? How do they relate to the locations important to the chronicle, to figures of authority, and to the rumor mill as it grinds along?

115 missing persons-creating your setting Putting it on Paper This step can also happen at any point; as soon as the players need someone concrete around whom to anchor a place or idea, create a person of interest. These can be lovers, siblings, or even the old ladies who watch everything the characters do from a window across the street. Each player should volunteer at least one person of interest while creating this chronicle starter. Write down the person of interest’s name on the map, and put a square around it. Consider this character’s relationship to the rest of the information on the map. Draw a line from the person of interest to any player character other than the initial player’s own. On that line, the player of the second character should write down a one-sentence description of their relationship to the person of interest. The player who volunteered the person of interest should also draw a line between the person of interest and the missing person. She can write a statement of their relationship as it appears to the outside world, perhaps related to her character, perhaps not. As a final step, she should draw a dotted line from the person of interest to either a location, a rumor, an authority, or even another person of interest, symbolizing another connection. There’s no need for a description here; the dotted line is just an implied connection that everyone can play off of later. What the Questions Answer People of interest are not the entire population of your chronicle, obviously, but as they spring up, they become representatives of the population. As they are written, they may start off as stereotypes. Build out from that, adding depth and focus. Once the chronicle map is completed, a Storyteller can and should make simple character sheets for the people of interest. At least make sure to make note of their names, whatever is written about them on the map, and give them each at least one strong Aspiration just as you would a player character. Media and Inspiration Just in case you need a little inspiration, or perhaps want to send along some ideas of what a missing persons case is like to your players, here’s some media that handles not just a death or missing person, but also the lives of the people around that person who is, otherwise, gone. Missing Person, as a chronicle starter, focuses on the vacuum a gone or dead person leaves in the lives of those around them, and these pieces of media reflect that idea in a few different ways. Consider the variety of tones you can bring to this chronicle starter with the ideas below. Stand by Me, movie, or “The Body”, short story by Stephen King. The Body, as well as the movie that was based on it, are both prime examples of using a missing persons case as a jumping-off point for a much deeper narrative. In the story, a group of boys travel into the wilderness outside their small town in search of a “dead kid” of whom they’d heard rumors among the other local children. It’s a powerful slice-of-life story about boys, who are on the cusp of being young men, dealing with their demons. The titular body is important, yes, but as a catalyst for growth rather than as its own event in the boys’ lives. Twin Peaks, TV. If your characters are likely to actually investigate the missing persons case, Twin Peaks is an interesting twist on the classic, more technical, police procedural. It focuses much more on the lives of the people around the dead girl, and examines what people thought of her as a person, versus who she actually was. It’s a strange story, too, one not outside of the realms of possibility for a Chronicles of Darkness game. Pretty Little Liars, TV. This modern teen drama, centered on a missing persons case, exemplifies the idea that a relatively small town can be absolutely bursting with secrets. Though the series’ primary mystery is “What happened to Alison DiLaurentis?” a multitude of revelations, romantic entanglements, and plot twists occur throughout the series, casting suspicion on seemingly every character at some point or another. The Killing (U.S. or Dutch version), TV. Like Twin Peaks, this show centers on a criminal investigation, but the lives of the investigators and the people involved are very intimate and intense. The pacing is slow, as one case takes up the entire length of the series, so it matches the pacing of a tabletop game a bit better than a typical one-and-done episode of a standard police procedural.

“You wanna see something really scary?” That was what he asked me, and I laughed. I’d seen that movie when I was a kid, too. “No, seriously,” he persisted. “I think it’s called Troxler fading or something. It’s this thing where, if you stare at a mirror in a dimly-lit room for long enough, you start to hallucinate. Like, you see yourself turn into a monster, or you see your dead parents or something.” “My parents are still alive, jackass.” “Fuck you, you know what I mean. So, you wanna see something really scary?” I sighed. When Alan got like this, you couldn’t shut him up. “Fine. Hold my beer. And don’t drink it.” I heaved my ass off the couch, kicked the empty pizza boxes to one side, and braved the hallway to our cramped bathroom. “Don’t blink!” Alan’s voice followed me into the bathroom. “If you blink it stops working!” Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Alan. I pushed the door closed until just a faint sliver of light was coming through, gripped the edges of the sink to steady myself, and stared into my own eyes. Oh yeah. Spoooooooky. Those dried specks of toothpaste foam were the terror of men everywhere. Why the hell did I let Alan talk me into this? “See anything yet?” “This is stupid!” “Trust me, it’s worth it!” After a minute, my eyes started to sting a little. Stupid no-blinking rule. Huh, you know, my vision was starting to go a little swimmy, and it kind of did look like my face was a little off. My eyes looked bigger. I grinned at myself, and holy shit that grin split my reflection’s face right to the ears. I flinched a little, blinking the sting out of my eyes — and my reflection just kept grinning at me. Its teeth were each the size of my thumbnail. “Holy shit!” “Is it working?” From the living room, the sharp creak of someone getting off the couch. My reflection placed a hand on the inside of the glass, and the mirror bowed outward, turning the bathroom behind me into a vast cavern, a cathedral of porcelain and mildew. I screamed then and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the bathtub. I tore my eyes away from the thing in the mir- ror, and then Alan was there. His face told me everything I needed to know. “Alan?” I was blinking back tears now. “She said they needed more people to see them. To let them in. Sorry, man.” As my world turned to nothing more than the sound of shatter- ing glass, the last thing that crossed my mind was: I thought blinking made it stop working.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 118 Horror comes in canisters with labels written in ancient languages that scratch at the mind like hidden claws. It comes in smiles that hide empty hearts and empty souls. It comes in shadows behind the dumpster, in handshakes in broad daylight, and in self-fulfilling nightmares. People in the Chronicles of Darkness can readily find horror in slavering beasts and primeval predators, but they can find it in the everyday atrocities that humans visit upon each other, too. No law of nature puts abomination in nicely classified boxes, easy to avoid if you just walk on the right side of the street and always lock your doors at night. It could be sitting across from you on the subway. It could be the subway. It could even be you. This chapter scratches the surface of the myriad horrors and wonders that populate the world. It gives the Storyteller characters and story hooks to use in her games, and simplifies her job by providing traits and rules that she can pick up and play with as is, or adapt to fit the needs of her game. The first section is about plain old human Antagonists. Not every encounter the player characters have throws them into the deep end of the dangerously supernatural. The Storyteller can use the traits given in this section to represent any number of non-supernatural enemy types that the player characters might run into, whether they decide to fight, talk, or just to follow these people around to see what trouble they’re up to. The second section presents rules that govern Ephemera, beings that live on the fringes of the material world and interact with it in unearthly ways. They range from ghosts of the dead to spirits of Shadow and angels of the God-Machine, to even weirder things that can’t be easily defined. This section presents rules for how to create ephemeral beings as Storyteller characters, including the strange laws they must follow, special powers they have, called Numina, and Conditions they cause or require for working their mystical devilry, like possessing people. It also explains how player characters can interact with these beings, including rules for summoning, warding, and binding. The third section talks about Horrors — physical monsters that share the world with humanity and plague it with all manner of gruesome terrors. It presents a system for building these creatures as major antagonists and details the sorts of powers they might possess. It also provides advice to the Storyteller on how and when to use such creatures, and what kinds of roles they might play in the story. Then, it gives examples the Storyteller can use in her games, or as inspiration for Horrors of her own devising. Antagonists Not every foe has hellish powers and an otherworldly agenda. Sometimes, the obstacle that stands between you and your goals is just a person like you, doing his job, standing up for what he believes in, or taking the gullible for everything they’re worth. This section presents traits for non-supernatural opponents that the Storyteller can use to populate her world and pit against the player characters in a variety of situations. Some are best suited to fighting, some to social maneuvering, and others to different kinds of challenges. Horrors and Wonders: Antagonists “Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Antagonists 119 The characters presented here are nameless archetypes, but the Storyteller can use them to represent any kind of character he needs for his game, whether it’s a minor antagonist that only turns up once or a recurring villain that has not only a name but an extensive history with the player characters. The Storyteller should feel free to alter any of these traits if he needs to; they’re given as examples and templates for ease of use. Traits All dice pools provided here are complete pools, with Attributes already added in for the Storyteller’s convenience. Only use the individual Attributes when the Storyteller needs to roll something that’s not already included. Assume that if it’s not represented by the dice pools here, the character is untrained in the Skill. Initiative Modifiers given here do not include penalties for weapons. The Willpower trait given here is an average for a character of that type, but Storytellers should feel free to modify this based on the importance of the character. Generally, one-off, nameless characters have no Willpower to spend in a given scene, while minor named characters have between 1 and 3. Each character presented here is an example, and serves as a template for other similar archetypes that can use the same traits. For instance, the traits given here for the Cocky Mob Hitman could also be used for a member of a secret police agency, or a hardened street gangster. A list of ways to reskin the character can be found at the bottom of each template, under “Doubles as.” COCKY MOB HITMAN “I knocked off five of your friends before you finished wiping your ass, so I’d think twice about opening that door if I were you. If you play nice, tell you what, I’ll even come to your funeral.” Description: He’s not here to chitchat. He’s here to kill you, plain and simple. He won’t waste time and he can’t be deterred. His eyes are dark and he seems to find satisfaction in what he’s confident are the last seconds of your life. You hope you can prove him wrong. Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 4, Resolve 2, Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2, Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 3 General Dice Pools: Taunting the Mark 4, Creepy Stalker 5, Breaking and Entering 5 Combat Dice Pools: Knockout Blows 6, Guns 8, Concealed Blades 7 Initiative Modifier: +7 Defense: 7 Health: 7 Willpower: 2 Size: 5 Speed: 12 Doubles as: Game hunter, street gangster, secret police agent, hired assassin. EXCITABLE MUNITIONS EXPERT “You ever thought about what you’re holding when you hold a grenade? It’s the lives of everybody in a fifty-foot radius, right in your hand. Kinda gets you off, doesn’t it?” Description: She shakes her leg whenever she sits down. She talks quickly and wears camo. She either takes her job way too seriously, or not nearly seriously enough. You can’t believe someone put her in charge of munitions, but she knows everything there is to know about gunpowder, fire bombs, and exactly how many people die every year in explosions. Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 2, Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2, Presence 2, Manipulation 1, Composure 2 General Dice Pools: Molotov Cocktails 6, Classified Information 5, Duck and Cover 6 Combat Dice Pools: Close-Quarters Combat 5, Guns 6, Explosives 8 Initiative Modifier: +6 Defense: 7 Health: 7 Willpower: 1 Size: 5 Speed: 12 Doubles as: Radical terrorist, FBI bomb disposal technician, demolitions operative. FANATICAL CULT LEADER “My friends, have faith! They couldn’t stop us with words, they couldn’t stop us with guns. Our sacred destiny transcends mere earthly means. They will never stop us!” Description: He worships something you can only find in dusty leather tomes. He doesn’t look like much, but whenever he opens his mouth, you listen. His followers take bullets for him with smiles on their faces, and he smiles, too. You fear that one day it’ll be you taking a bullet for him. While smiling. Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 2, Resolve 4, Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Presence 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 3 General Dice Pools: Pushing Your Buttons 6, Can’t Be Swayed 7, Friends Everywhere 5 Combat Dice Pools: Handguns 3, Knives 4 Initiative Modifier: +5

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 120 Defense: 3 Health: 8 Willpower: 3 Size: 5 Speed: 9 Doubles as: Crooked politician, freedom fighter, popular general, zealous preacher, powerful crimelord. HARD-NOSED BEAT COP “Come out with your hands up! Or hell, don’t — I’ve been itching to try out my new piece.” Description: This police officer has seen the worst humanity has to offer, and now she sees it everywhere. Nothing gets past her cold, steely glare. She’s been on the force for longer than you’ve been alive. In her mind, you’re already guilty, and she’d love to make you squeal like a rusty cell door. Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3, Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 2 General Dice Pools: Nowhere to Run 6, Cop Talk 4, Won’t Back Down 3 Combat Dice Pools: Grappling 6, Guns 7, Baton 5 Initiative Modifier: +6 Defense: 6 Health: 8 Willpower: 2 Size: 5 Speed: 12 Doubles as: Jaded soldier, nightclub bouncer, well-paid bodyguard, security guard, ex-convict. OBSESSED DEMON CULTIST “You think you know what’s really out there? Think again. Every day I learn a new name for something the world isn’t ready to see yet.” Description: She’s an expert in unspeakable horrors. She looks like she hasn’t slept or eaten in a week, but she could answer any question you pose about the things that prey on humanity. She won’t, though, not until you have her trust. And you don’t like what you might have to do to win it. Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 2, Resolve 3, Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Presence 2, Manipulation 3, Composure 3

Antagonists 121 General Dice Pools: Obscure Lore 7, Right Tool for the Job 5, Evasive Answers 5 Combat Dice Pools: Concealed Blades 3, Handguns 3 Initiative Modifier: +5 Defense: 3 Health: 7 Willpower: 1 Size: 5 Speed: 9 Doubles as: Mad scientist, retired monster hunter, suspicious professor, occult librarian. SLICK PROFESSIONAL GRIFTER “So sorry to bother you, ma’am, but can I interest you in the deal of a lifetime? Yes, of course you can see my paperwork. All you have to do is sign here, and here.” Description: You can’t be sure anything she’s said is true, but then, you can’t be sure it’s false either. She has all the right licenses and says all the right things. She smiles easily and shakes your hand with such a sincere, winning attitude; can you really accuse her of lying? Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 2, Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Presence 4, Manipulation 4, Composure 4 General Dice Pools: Smooth Talk 7, Sleight of Hand 6, Getting the Hell Out of Dodge 4 Combat Dice Pools: Handguns 4, Grappling 3 Initiative Modifier: +7 Defense: 5 Health: 7 Willpower: 1 Size: 5 Speed: 9 Doubles as: Black market salesman, corrupt lawyer, casino house dealer. TRAINED GUARD DOG “*bark! bark!* Grrrrr...” Description: It’s a Doberman Pinscher, a Rottweiler, or a German Shepherd. Its teeth are bared and its ears are pointed at you. You’re in its territory and it plans to rip you to pieces with all its friends. It can track you wherever you run, and it’s faster than you. Attributes: Intelligence 1, Wits 4, Resolve 3, Strength 4, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Presence 3, Manipulation 0, Composure 1 General Dice Pools: Born Survivor 7, Marathon Runner 7, Aggressive Growl 5 Combat Dice Pools: Bite 6, Tackle 6 Initiative Modifier: +5 Defense: 7 Health: 7 Willpower: 0 Size: 4 Speed: 12 Doubles as: K-9 hound, wild animal, swarm of vermin, genetic experiment. WORLD-WEARY PRIVATE EYE “I know, I know. I should keep my nose out of it and my mouth shut. My mother always said I had no common sense. I guess she was right.” Description: Somehow he picked up on your involvement and he just won’t let it go. You keep thinking you spot him out of the corner of your eye, wearing that battered old hat and watching you. No matter what you do, you can’t shake him. He acts like he knows everything already. Maybe he’s right. Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 3, Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Presence 1, Manipulation 3, Composure 4 General Dice Pools: On Your Tail 8, Knows a Guy 6, Paranoid Bastard 7 Combat Dice Pools: Concealed Firearms 5, Barroom Brawling 4 Initiative Modifier: +6 Defense: 4 Health: 8 Willpower: 3 Size: 5 Speed: 9 Doubles as: Police force detective, conspiracy theorist, nosy journalist, tabloid writer.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 122 Ephemeral Beings Humanity shares the world with innumerable entities, lurking invisible and intangible in a Twilight state, waiting for the right conditions to arise. When an area becomes tainted by the touch of death, when the wall between the world and the terrible, hungry Shadow of animist spirits grows thin, when people begin to see the gears of the God-Machine, the ghosts, spirits and angels can manifest, interact, and further their alien goals. All of them want something from humanity — memories, obedience, emotion… even their bodies. Sometimes, humanity fights back. Invisible Incursions The physical world borders on multiple realms, each with its own peculiar laws. The inhabitants of those realms aren’t material beings, and although many are intelligent and self-aware, their thoughts are alien to humans. Mortal investigators almost never see the worlds these beings come from with their own eyes, for which they should be grateful. Everything occultists have been able to learn about the animistic Shadow World and the chthonian deep of the Underworld paints both realms as deadly and teeming with “natives.” The enigmatic servant angels of the God-Machine might come from such a realm, or might be created within the world by the processes and Infrastructure they serve. No one knows for sure. Whether the beings are fleeing the dangers of their home realm, avoiding banishment to it, summoned from their home by mortal occultists, sent as agents by more powerful members of their own kind, or forced to cross over to complete a mission by the God-Machine, most encounters between characters and ephemeral beings in a God-Machine chronicle take place in the physical world, where characters have the home field advantage. Manifestation and Possession Instead of bodies formed of flesh and bone, ephemeral beings are made up of a sort of spiritual matter called ephemera, which comes in several varieties. These substances are both invisible and intangible to anything not comprised of the same sort of ephemera — ghosts can see and touch one another, but are invisible to most living people and don’t interact with solid objects or even other ephemeral beings that aren’t ghosts. Spirits happily float through walls and pass through ghosts without even noticing them, but are incapable of interacting with people without help. Almost every ephemeral being has the ability to Manifest, to make its presence known and affect the physical world, in ways ranging from remaining invisible but using powers, to appearing as insubstantial but visible images, to possessing a victim, sending his soul into hibernation and warping his body to suit their own uses. Some are more skilled at it than others (those so weak they can’t Manifest at all are essentially impotent and don’t interact with humans), but all require certain appropriate conditions before they can use these powers. An ephemeral being wanting to shift into physical form or inhabit an object, animal or person requires the area, item or character it is Manifesting into to have been prepared for its arrival. Ghosts require Anchors — places, objects and people that are linked to their living days and reinforce their failing identities. Angels can only appear in the world when enough Infrastructure has been laid out by the God-Machine. Spirits need the emotional resonance of the area or victim-host to match their own. The more powerful the Manifestation, the stronger the Condition needed. The most powerful physical forms and tightly-held victims are the result of careful husbandry by the Manifesting being, slowly building up the necessary Condition by leveraging whatever Manifestation they can produce at first. Unless Conditions are very strong, or the possessing entity extremely powerful, a human being falling victim to a possession is first urged to follow the entity’s wishes instead of his own, then forced to do its bidding, and only then physically mutated into a bizarre amalgamation of natural being and supernatural power. Summoning or exorcising entities from locations or Possession, then, is a matter of creating or destroying the appropriate setting for the creature, preferably near a place where it can cross over from or to its native realm. Most entities waste away, as though starving, outside of the needed Conditions, so breaking those Conditions is a surefire way of forcing the being to abandon its attempt at Manifestation and send it fleeing toward either a way “home” or another appropriate vessel. Cultists wanting to summon entities attempt to either ritually create appropriate Conditions near a crossing point, or offer up a suitable vessel in the hope that the right sort of ephemeral being will accept the gift. In the case of angels, most participants in a “summoning” never realize the significance of their actions — Infrastructure is gradually built as the God-Machine moves pawns and machinery around like game pieces until an angel is brought forth. Ghosts Echoes of the Dead When human beings die, especially in a sudden or traumatic fashion, they sometimes leave parts of themselves behind. Ranging from broken, animated afterimages, unable to do anything but reenact their death, to intelligent, malevolent, once-human spirits with power over whatever kind of calamity killed them, the world teems with vast numbers of the restless dead. More ghosts exist than any other supernatural creature, but the truly powerful, independent specters of legend are rare. The majority of ghosts are poor at influencing the world, trapped in their insubstantial state and unable to even Manifest, noticed only as a strange chill or eerie vibe if the living sense them at all. Ghosts are drawn to places and people

Ephemeral Beings 123 that they had emotional connections to in life — these anchor the ghost in the world and allow those with enough power to Manifest, whereupon they carry out whatever mad urges they still feel and attempt, in their broken state, to further the goals they left undone in life. Ghosts feed on Essence, a spiritual energy created by the memories and emotions that build up in their Anchors and are fed directly to them when they are remembered by the living. Ghosts that lose their Anchors and can’t transfer their attachment fade from the world, passing over to a dread realm filled with all the orphaned Ghosts that have gone before. This realm has many names in occult writings: Tartarus, the Great Below, the Land of the Dead, the Dominions, or simply the Underworld. The living seldom visit the Underworld, though mediums and death-obsessed mystery cults all over the world teach that gateways to it are more common than supposed. Its doors exist in the same Twilight state as ghosts themselves, invisible and unnoticed by the living. Tales of living occultists who learned the right places and the proper ceremonies to open the gates of death describe the Underworld as a chthonian hell of passageways, tunnels, and caverns, filled with desperate ghosts that lost their grip on the world. The Underworld sustains the dead, allowing them more freedom to move and act than the living world, but it also imprisons them. Once there, though, ghosts may increase in power and influence, evolving beyond the image of the person they were into twisted rulers of dead kingdoms, or sponsors and advocates of particular forms of death. If summoned back to the physical world or allowed to escape the Underworld by chance conditions, a ghost that has spent centuries growing stronger can wreak havoc until exorcised. Spirits Warped Reflections Animist religions describe the world as being full of spirits, with every object, animal and place hiding a spirit within it. They’re partly right; everything in the world apart from humans, even transitory events and strong emotions, does cast a spiritual reflection, but all spirits, apart from the cunning or a powerful few, are confined to a world of their own. Separated from the physical world by a barrier known to knowledgeable occultists as the Gauntlet, the spirit — or Shadow — world is a murky reflection of the physical. Its geography is (mostly) the same as the world, but places appear twisted to reflect their inner truth rather than looking exactly the same. Everywhere, spirits war on each other for survival. Spirits come into being alongside the thing of which they’re a reflection, but are dormant, barely living, tiny lumps of ephemera at first. As well as creating new spirits, actions in the physical world, and any emotions associated with them, create Essence in the physical world, some of which crosses over into the Shadow. If enough Essence is created around an embryonic spirit, it rouses into activity. By absorbing Essence, the spirit remains active. By consuming other spirits, it merges

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 124 those spirits into itself and grows larger and more powerful. As spirits become more powerful, they become less pure as reflections of their origins and more thematic in nature. For example, the spirit of a single owl grows by consuming other owl spirits. As it consumes spirits of night, hunting, the prey its owl eats, and other owl spirits, the spirit subtly changes. By the time it is an independent, thinking being that no longer follows the physical creature that created it around, it has warped into an exaggerated spirit of silent nocturnal hunting. The Essence it consumes also has an effect — an owl spirit evolving in an urban area feeds on different Essence than one in the countryside, and its appearance is colored by its diet. When mortal characters encounter spirits, something has gone wrong. Some spirits are capable of using their powers through the Gauntlet and, as their self-awareness grows with power, decide to create food sources for themselves by influencing what sort of spirits and Essence will be created around them. The true culprit behind an unusual pattern of domestic murders, for example, might be a murder spirit using its abilities to escalate arguments into homicides. The spirits that mortal investigators encounter in the physical world are refugees and escapees, those that crossed the Gauntlet to flee the constant risk of being killed and absorbed by larger spirits. They constantly strive to maintain their Essence, desperate to avoid returning to their own world. Without an easy source of Essence, spirits must anchor themselves like ghosts, finding an object or person that reflects their nature and tying their ephemeral bodies to them. The spirit remains intangible — and is often actually “inside” the host — but is safe from starvation as long as the host generates enough Essence to feed it. By influencing the host, or humans interacting with a material host, to more closely reflect its nature, the spirit gets a ready supply of Essence and may move on to more permanent forms of possession. Many items thought of as having wills of their own, or as being cursed, actually house spirits. Angels Functions of the God-Machine Unlike ghosts, who feed by being remembered and struggle to maintain their grip on the world, and spirits who flee their own Darwinian hell to carve a foothold in material reality, angels are both temporary visitors to the mortal realm and its only true “natives” among ephemeral beings. The God-Machine isn’t some far-off thing lurking in a distant dimension; it’s here, in the material world, built from mechanisms hidden from sight by guile and magic. When cultists summon a spirit, it journeys from the Shadow. When an angel is needed, the God-Machine is as likely to build the angel right there as direct an existing one to journey to the site. When angels are reused, they spend the downtime “resting,” dormant, in storage facilities hidden by the very deepest Infrastructure. Sometimes, cultists and prying outsiders who witness the gears catch glimpses of these facilities — cavernous chambers, folded neatly into impossible spaces, filled Other Entities The ghosts, spirits, and angels presented here aren’t the only ephemeral entities to exist. The vari- ous Chronicles of Darkness games have used the spirit rules this section updates to represent many different beings, from the inhabitants of an astral world visited by mages, to demonic owls made of smoke with a strange connection to vampires. Just as ghosts, spirits, and angels are slightly different, adapting these beings to use the rules here involves setting out both where they follow these rules and where they don’t. Future chronicle books may detail ephemeral entities particular to those chronicles. with hydraulics, gears, and hissing machines surrounding the angels while keeping them fed with Essence. They’re always guarded. Being essentially tools designed by an intelligent, if unknowable, creator to fulfill specific functions, angels are far more specialized than spirits or ghosts. They’re also usually more subtle and able to go unnoticed even when Manifested, but are extremely single minded, aiming to complete the task they’ve been sent for and then vanish. The God-Machine sends angels to make adjustments to Infrastructure and its plans when something has gone wrong and the gears can’t self-correct. Angels hunt down individuals who have failed to die at the proper time, acquire replacements for lynchpins that have unexpectedly failed, and make corrections to the flow of causality, carefully setting up minor events (the closing of a door, the drop of a pen, a sudden distracting sound at just the right time) which will have increasingly-large repercussions. The Conditions needed to bring an angel into the world, though, are much more complicated than a ghost’s anchors or a spirit’s essence, requiring layers of Infrastructure, precise timing, and occult maneuvers which are barely understood. Occult literature is filled with angel-summoning rites, but they’re mostly useless — if mortal cultists participate in calling an angel to a mission, it will be because they are themselves part of the Infrastructure it needs. Game Systems Ghosts, spirits and angels share a broad set of rules, with minor variations to cover situations such as spirits reaching across the Gauntlet. The State of Twilight Unless they Manifest or use a power to appear, ephemeral beings remain in their insubstantial state when in the material world. This state is described as “Twilight.” To beings in Twilight, physical objects appear pale and semitransparent,

Game Systems 125 Rank Rank* Trait Limits ** Attribute Dots Maximum Essence Numina • 5 dots 5-8 10 1-3 •• 7 dots 9-14 15 3-5 ••• 9 dots 15-25 20 5-7 •••• 12 dots 26-35 25 7-9 ••••• 15 dots 36-45 50 9-11 * Each Rank levies a -1 modifier on attempts to forcibly bind that entity and acts as a Supernatural Tolerance trait. ** These represent permanent dots, not temporarily-boosted ones. light sources are dimmed and sounds distorted as though underwater. Twilight isn’t an actual place, though, more a description of how ephemera interacts — or fails to interact — with material reality. When in Twilight, only items, creatures, and phenomena that are also in Twilight and comprised of the same kind of ephemera can touch an ephemeral being. Attacks simply pass through the Twilit being, and solid concrete and steel are no more hindrance than fog. The exception is ghost structures. Destroyed objects — everything from a pen to a building — appear as after-images in Twilight, formed of the same ephemera as ghosts. These spiritual structures and items fade away on a timescale that depends on how strongly they’re remembered. Famous structures, or even obscure ones that are loved and thought about frequently after they’re destroyed, can last decades, solid and substantial only to ghosts. If no ghostly structures get in the way, ephemeral beings in Twilight can move at a walking pace in any direction. Gravity has no sway, though Twilit beings can only truly “fly” if it’s appropriate for their form — most hug the material terrain. A ghost could walk up the side of a tower block, for example, but couldn’t then float through midair to the next tower. Some occultists and supernatural creatures practice Astral Projection, which allows a character to leave her body behind and explore the world in an invisible form. These projected selves are technically in Twilight, but lack even ephemeral bodies so aren’t solid even to one another. Ephemeral Traits Ephemeral beings aren’t alive the way humans are alive. They aren’t biological creatures, and don’t have the divides between body, soul, and mind mortals and once-mortal supernatural beings possess. In game terms, ephemeral beings are represented by simplified game traits. Rank All ephemeral beings have dots in an Advantage called Rank, which notes how self-aware and powerful the entity Supernatural Tolerance Just as ephemeral beings possess Rank, many su- pernatural creatures in the Chronicles of Darkness have “power level” traits of their own, ranging from 1 to 10 dots. They all have slightly different rules, described in the appropriate rulebooks, but all share one quality; they are added to Resistance Attributes when levying Resistance-based pen- alties to the dice pools of many supernatural powers. The various supernatural traits, including Rank, are interchangeable for this purpose. When a Numen in this chapter calls for “Supernatural Tolerance” to be added to resistance, that’s what it means. Example: A vampire attempting to quell an angry, Manifested Angel attempts to use a hypnotic gaze. The power’s description in Vampire: The Requiem calls for the activation dice pool to be penalized by “Resolve + Blood Potency,” Blood Potency being the vampiric Supernatural Tolerance trait. The vampire’s dice pool is penalized by the Spirit’s Resistance + Rank instead. Example: A ghost attempts to use the Awe Numen (p. 136) on the first of two interlopers in the now-abandoned house it owned in life. The Numen is contested by Presence + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance, but the intruder is a mortal and doesn’t have a Supernatural Tolerance trait, so just rolls the two Attributes. When the ghost at- tempts to use the power on the second intruder the next turn, though, it discovers that she is actually a mage; she adds Gnosis (the mage Tolerance trait) to her contesting dice pool.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 126 is. Rank technically ranges from 1 to 10 dots, but entities with more than Rank ••••• are so alien they can’t support themselves in the Conditions lesser beings use, and can only be brought into the world by story- and chronicle-defining maneuvers, conjunctions, and events. The Lords of the Dead, Gods of Shadow, and the mighty archangels are out of the scope of the Storytelling system. If they appear at all, they do so as plot devices. Rank is used to determine the maximum ratings in other game traits an ephemeral being can have, as described in a table below, along with how many dots of Attributes the entity can have. All ephemeral beings have the ability to sense the relative Rank of other entities, and may attempt to conceal their own Rank by succeeding in a contested Finesse roll. Success means that the entity appears to be of the same Rank as the being sensing the relative Rank. Ghosts can’t increase Rank outside of the Underworld, and come into existence as either Rank 1 or 2 depending on how much self-awareness they have. Nonsapient “recording”- type ghosts are Rank 1, while those that retain most of their living memories are Rank 2. Ghosts summoned back from the Underworld, however, may be of any Rank. Spirits and Angels run the full range of Ranks, depending on how old and successful a spirit is or how much importance the God-Machine places upon an angel. Essence A combination of food, oxygen, and wealth, Essence fuels ephemeral entities’ powers, sustains their insubstantial bodies, and allows them to continue existing. As a game trait, Essence resembles Willpower in that each entity has a permanent maximum Essence rating and an equal number of Essence points it can spend to achieve effects. Maximum Essence is determined by Rank. Entities can use Essence in the following ways: • Ephemeral beings must spend a point of Essence per day to remain active. If they have run out of Essence, they fall into hibernation until something happens to regain at least 1 point, which can then be spent on returning to activity. Such dormancy is dangerous — the entity remains in Twilight and can be destroyed if it loses all Corpus and Essence at the same time. When spirits enter hibernation, they are pushed back across the Gauntlet into the Shadow. Ghosts that don’t have any anchors remaining are similarly forced into the Underworld. Angels remain dormant wherever they were. • Ephemeral beings outside of a suitable Condition bleed one point of Essence per hour. The Influence and Manifestation Conditions starting on p. 132 state whether they protect from Essence bleed for different types of ephemeral being. Entities that run out of Essence due to bleed suffer a single point of lethal damage and enter hibernation. • Ephemeral beings can spend Essence to boost their traits for a single scene on a point-per-dot basis. They can’t boost a single trait by more than Rank + 2 dots; Gauntlet Strength The strength of the wall between the world and its Shadow depends mostly on how many people are present in the area. The paradox of why human activity pushes the Shadow away when it also creates vast quantities of emotionally-resonant Essence is a mystery. If the spirits know, they aren’t telling, but the Gauntlet breaks more easily away from civilization. Whenever a spirit attempts to cross between the material world and the Shadow, uses Influence or Manifestation to reach across, feeds from the material world’s Essence while still being in the Shadow, or uses a Reaching Manifestation (see p. 130), the dice pool is penalized by a number of dice according to the following chart. Location Strength Modifier Dense urban areas -3 City suburbs, towns -2 Small towns, villages -1 Wilderness, countryside 0 Locus +2 A Locus is a location in which the Shadow world is especially close. Spirits don’t need the Reaching Manifestation Effect to use their powers across the Gauntlet at a locus, attempts to cross over are at +2 dice, and spirits whose nature matches the Locus’ Resonant Condition heal at twice the normal rate. boosting takes a turn and they can only boost a single Attribute in a turn. Entities can sense sources of Essence appropriate for their needs up to a mile away. Spirits can use this sense through the Gauntlet. The Seek Numen (p. 138) increases this range. • Ephemeral beings regain 1 point of Essence per day that they are in proximity to any Condition relating to them — ghosts are sustained by staying near their anchors, spirits in the Shadow eke out an existence by feeding across the Gauntlet, and angels are fed by Infrastructure. • Ephemeral beings can attempt to steal Essence from beings of the same type — ghosts from ghosts, spirits from spirits and so on. The attacking entity rolls Power + Finesse, contested by the victim’s Power + Resistance. If the attacker succeeds, it steals up to the number of successes in Essence, as long as the victimized entity has Essence remaining to lose.

Game Systems 127 • Ghosts regain a point of Essence whenever someone remembers the living person they once were. Visiting their grave, simply sitting and remembering them, or recognizing their Manifested form as the person they used to be all qualify. • Spirits may attempt to gorge themselves on a source of appropriate Essence. Once per day, when in proximity (even if it’s on the other side of the Gauntlet) to a suitable Condition, a spirit can roll Power + Finesse, regaining successes in Essence. If the spirit is still in the Shadow, the dice pool is penalized according to Gauntlet strength. • Angels are mechanisms in the God-Machine, and like any machine they are sustained by fuel. God-Machine cultists sacrificing precious resources (metaphorical or literal), animals, or even humans to the angel in its presence allow it to regain the Resources value of the item or animal, or the current Integrity of a human sacrifice, as Essence. Attributes and Skills Ephemeral beings don’t have the nine Attributes familiar in material characters, but use a simplified set of the Power, Finesse, and Resistance categories mortal Attributes fall into. When creating an ephemeral being, look at the Rank chart earlier in this section to determine how many dots are available and what the trait maximum is. Ghosts usually use the average rating in each category from when they were alive — for example, a man with Strength 3, Intelligence 2, and Presence 2 would become a ghost with Power 2. Power describes the raw ability of the entity to impose itself on other ephemeral beings and the world at large. It is used in all rolls that call for Strength, Intelligence, or Presence. Finesse describes how deft the entity is at imposing its desires with fine control. It is used for all rolls that call for Dexterity, Wits, or Manipulation. Resistance describes how well the entity can avoid imposition from its peers, and how easily it is damaged. It is used for all rolls that call for Stamina, Resolve, or Composure. Ephemeral beings don’t possess skills, but don’t suffer unskilled penalties as long as the action they’re attempting is appropriate to their former self, nature, or mission. They roll the appropriate Attribute + Rank for actions relating directly to their concept, or Attribute + Attribute for actions like surprise and perception. Advantages Ephemeral beings differ in how they treat Integrity, Virtues, Vices, and Fate. When they possess these traits, the descriptions used are often unusual and the specifics change according to the entity’s origin. Ghosts retain their Virtue and Vice from life, but they are reversed in effect — ghosts regain all spent Willpower by fulfilling their Vice, but can only do so once per chapter, and regain up to 1 Willpower point per scene by fulfilling their Virtue. All ghosts have the same Fate, “Forgotten,” which comes into play when a ghost risks losing an anchor and sliding closer to imprisonment in the Underworld. Even powerful ghosts that are summoned back to the material world retain this Fate, as the conditions of their summoning are all that’s keeping them from the Great Below. Alone among ephemeral beings, ghosts also possess Integrity, set at the level they had before death. Their Integrity scores don’t change, however, as ghosts do not suffer breaking points. Their self-image is fixed, unless something happens to push them back to the level of cognizance and self-awareness they had in life. If this should happen somehow, they can suffer breaking points the same way living people can. Spirits don’t have an Integrity trait, a Virtue, or a Vice. Instead, they regain 1 point of spent Willpower per 3 points of Essence they consume by gorging or stealing as described above. They do, however, have Fates, which reflect the violent struggle of spiritual existence. Keywords like “Bound,” “Consumed,” or “Starved” are all appropriate for spirit Fates. Angels lack Integrity — they simply obey the God-Machine in all things — and likewise don’t have Fates. They do have Virtues and Vices, though, built into them as operating guidelines and preset responses. Angelic Virtues and Vices don’t have to be anything a human would describe as virtuous or wicked. Examples include “Silent,” “Hidden,” “Obedient,” “Curious,” “Punctual,” “Wrathful,” and “Precise,” all as either Virtue or Vice depending on the angel in question. Other Traits Because they have simplified traits, ephemeral entities calculate derived traits a little differently from mortal characters. Corpus: Ephemeral beings don’t have Health, but measure how intact their Twilight form is using Corpus. Permanent Corpus is equal to Resistance + Size, and grants Corpus boxes that act like Health boxes, filling when the entity suffers injury. Corpus boxes don’t have wound penalties associated with them. Willpower: Entities have Willpower dots equal to Resistance + Finesse, with a maximum of 10 dots for entities with the Ranks presented in this book. In addition to the Willpower-gaining methods described above, all ephemeral beings regain 1 spent Willpower per day. Initiative: Initiative is equal to Finesse + Resistance. Defense: Defense is equal to Power or Finesse, whichever is lower, except for Rank 1 spirits which use the higher of the two Attributes. The more an entity is driven by raw instinct, the more animal defense it displays in combat. Speed: Speed is equal to Power + Finesse + a species factor. Spirits of inanimate objects usually have a species factor of 0. Size: Ephemeral beings can be of any size. Ghosts are usually Size 5, while spirits often use Rank as Size, growing larger as they become more powerful. Angels designed to blend in are sized as humans or animals, but some angelic entities are very large, up to Size 10 or higher.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 128 Language: Rank 1 ghosts can’t communicate verbally; they don’t have enough of their sense of self left to employ language. Rank 2 and higher ghosts know whichever languages they knew in life. Spirits all speak the native tongue of the shadow world, a strange, sibilant language that resembles ancient Sumerian, but often learn the human languages common around their Essence-feeding grounds. Angels speak all human languages simultaneously, and more — they sometimes “speak” in strange glossolalia or sounds more like electronic noise than a language, and appear to understand each other when doing so. When an angel wishes to be understood, everyone present hears it speak fluently in their native languages. Bans All ephemeral beings suffer from a mystical compulsion known as the ban, a behavior that the entity must or must not perform under certain conditions. They can be as simplistic as “the angel cannot cross railway lines,” moderately complex like “the ghost must come if you call her name into a mirror three times within her anchor,” or as difficult as, “the angel must receive a tribute of a printing press that has used blood as ink once a month or lose a Rank.” Bans increase in both complexity and consequences with Rank. Rank 1 entities have mild bans that are easily triggered, but don’t endanger the entity. A spirit of bliss can’t resist an offering of opiates. The ghost of a nun has to immediately use an offered rosary. A weak angel must stand still and parrot hexadecimal numbers when they’re spoken to it. Rank 2 and 3 entities have moderate bans that curtail the creature’s activities in a more serious way than mere distraction. A ghost must immediately dematerialize when it hears the sound of a cat. The murderous spirit of a car that has run down multiple people loses all Willpower if it doesn’t kill one person a month. The angel of the records answers any question about the family, background, or true identity of a subject if the questioner accurately tells the angel her time (to the minute) and place of birth. Rank 4 and 5 entities have complicated bans that put an end to whatever the creature is trying to do — often in an explosive fashion. They have consequences in game traits or long-term actions, but esoteric requirements. The Smiling Corpse, a ghost summoned back from the Underworld by a mystery cult, is immediately banished back to the Great Below if anyone should sing a particular nursery rhyme in his presence. The spirit of Mount Iliamna, a volcano in Alaska, will use its Numina to kill a victim named by anyone who makes it an offering of platinum that was mined from its foothills. The angel Uriminel, four-faced enforcer of destiny, has Defense 0 against individuals who have fulfilled their Fate within the last lunar month. Banes Ephemeral entities are not of the material world, and react strangely to some elements of it. The interaction between Honorary Rank Some supernatural creatures that are closely related to a form of ephemeral being have “honorary” Rank in the appropriate otherworldly hierarchy; Sin-Eaters are all Bound to a ghost, for example, and werewolves are treated with respect by spirits according to their Renown. Technicalities, in this case, count, but only against the ephemeral entity. A werewolf who “outranks” a minor spirit will deal devastating wounds to it with his claws, but a high-Rank spirit can’t burn that werewolf by touching him. There are other ways to assert dominance, and high-Rank enti- ties are quite capable of showing the half-fleshed who’s boss. their ephemeral Twilight form and physical substances always contains a flaw — a bane — that damages the entity’s Corpus through symbolic or mystical interference. The bane is a physical substance or energy the entity can’t abide. • Ephemeral beings voluntarily attempting to come into contact with the bane must spend a Willpower point and succeed on a Resolve + Composure roll with a dice penalty equal to their Rank. • Banes are solid to entities, even when they are in Twilight. They do not, however, affect spirits on the other side of the Gauntlet. • Simply touching the bane — even voluntarily — causes a level of aggravated damage per turn if the entity is Materialized, and causes the relevant Condition to end unless the entity succeeds in a roll of Rank in dice. The roll must be repeated every turn if contact holds. • If the item or person to which a Fettered entity is linked comes into contact with the bane, the entity suffers a level of lethal damage per turn as long as contact holds. The entity must use the Unfetter Manifestation Effect to escape. • Touching the bane while in Twilight causes a point of lethal damage per turn to non-Manifested entities. • If the bane has been used as a weapon against the entity, the wounds suffered are aggravated for Manifest entities and lethal for entities still in Twilight. Banes are increasingly esoteric and obscure for entities of increasing Rank. Rank 1 entities have common substances and phenomena as banes. Ghosts burn at the touch of salt. The spirit of a forest is poisoned by the fumes of burning plastic. A low-Rank angel can’t touch gold.

Game Systems 129 Rank 2 and 3 entities have difficult to obtain, but still “natural,” banes. Powerful ghosts are repelled by holy water. A spirit must be killed by a sharpened stake made of pine. A mid-Rank angel can be killed by a weapon dusted with the ground-up remains of a meteorite. Rank 4 and 5 entities have highly-specific banes that require great effort to acquire. The lord of an Underworld realm, now walking the Earth and served by a cult of worshippers, can be killed by an obsidian blade marked with the names of 13 Gods of Death. The spirit of the US Treasury (the building) can be killed by a silver bullet made from a melted-down original dollar. A high-Rank angel can’t willingly touch the sigils of a certain incantation in Sumerian, and dies if the signs are carved into the flesh of its host. The hierarchical nature of ephemeral beings also plays a part — Rank isn’t a social convention for them, but a fundamental part of their nature. Ephemeral entities of 2 Ranks or more above an opponent of the same type (a Rank 5 spirit attacking a Rank 3 spirit, for example), count as their opponent’s bane when using unarmed attacks, claws, or teeth. Combat As noted earlier, ephemeral beings use the lower of Finesse or Resistance for Defense unless they are Rank 1, in which case they use the higher. They apply Defense against all attacks, even firearms. Ephemeral beings roll Power + Finesse to attack. Their attacks inflict bashing damage unless the nature of the entity (a spirit with metal fists, for example) indicates that it should inflict lethal wounds instead. Some entities use weapons, in which case roll Power + Finesse, then apply weapon damage on a successful attack. Entities in Twilight can only attack or be attacked by other ephemeral beings of the same type, unless the attack utilizes the entity’s bane. Physical attacks on a Manifested entity that would normally cause lethal damage only cause bashing damage unless the attack utilizes the entity’s bane. Despite appearing to the naked eye and being solid, a Manifested spirit, ghost, or angel doesn’t have any internal organs to injure. Ephemeral beings record and heal from wounds in the same way as material characters, but lose one point of Essence for every aggravated wound they suffer. Ephemeral entities that lose all Corpus from lethal or aggravated wounds explode into a burst of ephemera, stylized to their nature. A forest spirit dies in a hail of rapidlyvanishing pine needles, while ghosts crumble, screaming, into the ground. The entity isn’t actually dead, though, unless it has also run out of Essence. If it has even a single Essence point remaining, it reforms, hibernating, in a safe place (a Conditioned location, usually). Once it has regained Essence points equal to its Corpus dots, it spends an Essence point and reawakens. As the entity can’t act while hibernating, this means it must wait for the one Essence a day for being in a suitable area to slowly build up to Corpus, and that more powerful entities take longer to recover from being “killed.”

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 130 Influence Durations Level Duration Cost 0 One minute per success No additional Essence cost. • Ten minutes per success No additional Essence cost. •• One hour per success The cost is 1 ad- ditional Essence. ••• One day per success The cost is 2 additional Essence. •••• Permanent The cost is 2 additional Essence. Influence Effects Level Effect • Strengthen The entity can enhance its sphere of influence. It can add to the Defense of a loved one, make an emotion stronger, an animal or plant healthier, or an object more robust, gaining the entity’s Rank in Health or Structure. This Influence can shift the Anchor, Resonant or Infrastructure Condition to Open for its duration. The cost is 1 Essence. •• Manipulate The entity can make minor changes within its sphere of influence, such as slightly changing the nature or target of an emotion, or make minor changes to an animal’s actions, a plant’s growth, or an object’s functionality. The cost is 2 Essence. ••• Control The entity can make dramatic changes within its sphere of influence, twisting emotions entirely or dictating an animal’s actions, a plant’s growth or an object’s functionality. This Influence can shift the Open Condition to Controlled for its duration. The cost is 3 Essence. •••• Create The entity can create a new example of its sphere of influence. It can create a new anchor, instill an emotion, create a new sapling or young plant, create a young animal, or create a brand new object. The entity can cause a temporary Anchor, Infrastructure, or Resonant Condition in a subject for the duration of the Influence. The cost is 4 Essence. ••••• Mass Create The entity can create multiple examples of its sphere of influence, triggering emotions in multiple people, creating new copses of trees, small groups of animals, or multiple, identical items. The cost is 5 Essence. The number of examples of the Influence created is equal to Rank. Alternately, the entity may create one instance of its sphere of influence — including creating the base Condition for its type — permanently, although an ephemeral entity can’t permanently alter the mind of a sentient being. Influence All ephemeral beings have a degree of Influence over the world, which they can leverage to control and shape the basis of their existence. Ghosts have power over their own anchors, spirits can control and encourage the phenomena from which they were born, and the God-Machine grants angels broad authority over things relating to their mission. Entities begin with dots in Influence equal to Rank. Although Rank is also the maximum rating for an Influence, ephemeral beings can split their dots to have more than one Influence. A Rank 4 spirit of dogs, for example, might have Influence: Dogs ••• and Influence: Loyalty •. Entities may reduce their number of Numina granted by Rank to increase Influence dots, at a cost of 1 Numen per dot. Spirits and angels have Influences that relate to their natures, which may be used in multiple circumstances — the dog spirit, for example, has Influence: Dogs, not Influence over a particular dog. Ghosts always have Influence: Anchors, though they may have other Influences as well as they increase in Rank. Influence is measured in both scale and duration. To use an Influence, compare the entity’s Influence rating to the total dots of the intended effect and how long it is to last. The total must be equal to or less than the entity’s Influence rating in order for the Influence to be attempted. The entity pays the listed cost in Essence and rolls Power + Finesse, with success creating the desired effect. If the Influence is altering the thoughts or emotions of a sentient being, the roll is contested by Resolve or Composure (whichever is higher) + Supernatural Tolerance. Manifestation Ephemeral beings can interact with the mortal world in many different ways, from lurking in Shadow and reaching

Game Systems 131 Manifestation Effects Manifestation Effect Twilight Form If the entity enters the material world, it does so in Twilight (see p. 124). The Effect has no cost. Discorporate In emergencies, the entity can voluntarily Discorporate as though it had lost all Corpus to lethal injury — a painful way to escape a greater entity threatening to permanently kill it. The Effect has no cost. Reaching (Spirit only) By spending one Essence, the spirit applies the ReachingCondition to itself. The activation roll is penalized by the local Gauntlet Strength. Gauntlet Breach (Spirit only — requires Resonant Condition) By spending 3 Essence, the spirit forces itself through the Gauntlet — returning to Shadow from the material world, or appearing in Twilight Form by entering the material world. The activation roll is penalized by the local Gauntlet Strength. Avernian Gateway (Ghost, angel, or death-related spirit only — Requires Open Condition) By spending 3 Essence, the entity opens a nearby gateway to the Underworld, and applies the Underworld Gate Condition to the location. Shadow Gateway (Rank 3+ spirit or angel only — Requires Open Condition) By spending Essence equal to Gauntlet Strength, the entity opens a portal to the Shadow that it and other entities may use, applying the “Shadow Gate” Condition to the location. The activation roll is penalized by the local Gauntlet Strength. Image (Requires Anchor, Resonant, or Infrastructure Condition) By spending 1 Essence, the entity may make its Twilight form visible to material beings for a scene. Materialize (Requires Open Condition) By spending 3 Essence, the entity may shift from Twilight form into the Materialized Condition. Fetter (Requires Open Condition) By spending 2 Essence, the entity adds the Fettered Condition to itself. Living beings targeted by this Effect contest the roll with Resolve + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance. If the Effect is successful, living targets gain the Urged Condition. Unfetter (Requires Fettered Condition) By spending 1 point of Essence, the entity temporarily suppresses the Fetter Condition for a Scene, allowing it to use other Manifestation Effects or roam in Twilight. When the Scene ends, any Manifestation Effects used during it immediately end. If the entity isn’t back within range of its Fetter (see p. 134) when Unfetter ends, it immediately goes dormant. Possess (Requires Open Condition) By spending 3 Essence, the entity gains temporary control over an object, corpse, or creature, applying the Possessed Condition to the subject. Living subjects contest the roll with Resolve + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance. Claim (Requires Controlled Condition) By spending 5 Essence, the entity gains permanent control over an object, creature or corpse, applying the Claimed Condition to the subject. Living subjects contest the roll with Resolve + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance. An entity must be capable of both the Fetter and Possess Manifestations to buy Claim. across the Gauntlet to physically Manifesting or merging into a human soul. Just as Influence traits determine what level of control the creature has over their environment, Manifestation traits define which forms of Manifestation are possible for a particular entity. Entities begin with the Twilight Form Manifestation and a number of Manifestation Effects from the list below, equal to Rank. Some effects are only available to certain kinds of entities. Entities may increase their capabilities by reducing the number of Numina they are granted by Rank, at the cost of 1 Numen per Manifestation Effect. Most Manifestation Effects have prerequisite Influence or Manifestation Conditions – a spirit can only Fetter to something with an Open Condition, for example. All Manifestation Effects require a Power + Finesse roll to use. Most have an associated cost in Essence, and some are contested or resisted.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 132 Ephemeral Influence and Manifestation Conditions If something falls into an ephemeral being’s sphere of influence, this is handled mechanically by declaring an Influence Condition. Influence Conditions resemble Tilts and character Conditions. The different forms of Manifestation Effect are also Conditions, applied to the location, object, or character the entity is Manifesting into, or in cases like Reaching, to the entity itself. Unlike many Conditions, Influence and Manifestation Conditions are tiered and interrelated; Manifestation Conditions have Influence Conditions as prerequisites and vice versa. The lower tiers are naturally occurring, while the higher ones must be created by entities using Influences and Manifestations. Durations of Stacked Conditions In the most advanced forms of Inf luence and Manifestation, entities may attempt to create a long-lasting Condition that has a prerequisite of a very temporary one. When one Condition is advanced into another, the remaining duration of the prerequisite Conditions is “frozen.” If a prerequisite Condition is removed from a character (for example, a Possessed character’s Open Condition is removed by exorcism) any Conditions relying on it, any Conditions relying on them, and so on, are immediately removed. The most advanced remaining Condition then resumes its duration.

Game Systems 133 ANCHOR Description: The subject of this Condition — usually a location or object, though it can be a person in rare cases — is within the sphere of influence of a ghost. Ghosts in or within Rank x3 yards of their Anchors do not suffer Essence bleed. Causing the Condition: This Condition is immediately created when a new ghost is formed, based on whatever subject anchors the ghost’s identity. Summoning rituals intended to release ghosts from the Underworld or call them from elsewhere temporarily create this Condition in their target. Finally, a high-Rank ghost can use a Create Influence to mark a target as an Anchor. Ending the Condition: The easiest way to end an Anchor condition is to destroy the subject. Some ghosts cling to Anchors that represent unfinished business, in which case resolving those issues can remove the Condition. Abjuration temporarily suppresses the Condition, as described on p. 140, forcing the ghost to retreat to another Anchor if it has one. Ghosts without Anchors bleed Essence until they fall into dormancy, at which point the Underworld Gate Condition is created and the ghost is banished to the Great Below. RESONANT Description: The subject of this Condition is within the sphere of influence of a spirit. Causing the Condition: This Condition is common and occurs naturally; if an object, phenomenon, person, or place matches the spirit’s purview in some way, it has this Condition. Anything matching the description of one of a spirit’s Influences counts as having this Condition tagged to the spirit. Summoning rituals intended to entice a particular spirit to a location work by instilling the qualities that result in this Condition. Finally, a high-Rank spirit can use a Create Influence to cause the prerequisites for the Condition itself. Ending the Condition: The Condition ends if the phenomenon creating it ends. A forest stops being Resonant for a tree spirit when all the trees are logged, a grief spirit can’t Influence someone who has healed and let go of his pain, and a fire spirit must move on when the fire is extinguished. Abjuration and exorcism may temporarily suppress the Condition, or be the cause of it “naturally” ending, if the ritualists remove the causal phenomenon as part of the ritual. INFRASTRUCTURE Description: The subject of this Condition is within the sphere of influence of an angel. Causing the Condition: Infrastructure, unlike Anchor and Resonant, never occurs naturally. The God-Machine requires effort to prepare the way for its angels; extended actions by cultists, unwitting pawns or even other angels create Infrastructure. High-Rank angels can use the Create Influence to instill this Condition on behalf of themselves or a subordinate angel. In addition, characters with the Destiny Merit are always subject to this Condition. Ending the Condition: Infrastructure’s intricate nature makes it much more difficult to remove. Multiple extended actions that take place over whole stories are necessary to dismantle the Condition, opposed by the angel itself. OPEN Prerequisites: The Anchor, Resonant, or Infrastructure Condition for the same phenomenon this Condition is tagged to. Description: The place, object, animal, or person covered by a previous Condition has now been conditioned to accept the entity. It can attempt to Fetter itself to the subject of the Condition, or, if the Condition is on a location, Manifest. Causing the Condition: This Condition is usually the result of an entity fine tuning the prerequisite Condition as part of an extended action involving the subject and entity acting in concert, for a number of scenes equal to Rank or a living subject’s Resolve, whichever is higher. Using a Control Influence allows an entity to temporarily create the Open Condition as an instant action. Ending the Condition: The Condition ends if the prerequisite Condition is removed. Exorcism rituals work by removing this Condition, reverting it to the prerequisite. CONTROLLED Prerequisites: The intended subject of this Condition must have the Open Condition, tagged to the entity attempting to cause it. Description: The object, creature, or person covered by an Open Condition has now been so conditioned that the entity may attempt to Claim it, permanently merging with it. Causing the Condition: This Condition is the result of repeated use of the Possess Manifestation effect by the causing entity. It must have succeeded in possessing the subject on a number of separate occasions equal to the Willpower of either the entity or the subject, whichever is higher. If any Possessed Condition is removed before its duration ends, progress is lost on building to the required number of possessions. Ending the Condition: Successfully ending the Claimed Condition against the entity’s will, by exorcism or by forcing the Claimed subject into contact with the entity’s bane, removes this Condition and reverts the subject to Open. REACHING Description: The spirit has opened a conduit through the Gauntlet, allowing it to use Influences and Numina to affect the other side. Numina with [R] after their name can be used with this Condition. Characters capable of perceiving spirits in Twilight can sense the conduit’s presence with a successful Wits + Composure roll.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 134 Causing the Condition: This Condition is the result of the Reaching Manifestation Effect, and lasts for one Scene. Ending the Condition: At the end of the scene, the Condition fades. Mortals may attempt an abjuration with a three-die penalty to close the conduit and end the Condition early. UNDERWORLD GATE Description: The location has an open gateway to the Underworld. All ghosts regain one Essence per scene that they are in the gateway’s presence, and ghosts without anchors may use it to reenter the world. Causing the Condition: This Condition can be created by using the Avernian Gateway Manifestation Effect on an Open Condition. Some supernatural beings with ties to death are also able to open Avernian Gateways. Even mortals can open a gate if one is present and they know the proper means. Mortals who conduct rituals to first open a DeathResonant location housing a gate can unlock it, causing this Condition, but require the key to do so. Every Gateway has a key — an item or action that will open it. Keys can be physical objects, but are also sometimes actions or emotions, or are tied to times and events; a Gate might open for a murder at midnight, when touched with a certain doll, or when a woman betrayed in love turns her back on it three times. Researching a proper key is a difficult Intelligence + Occult roll, with a -3 to -5 dice modifier. Ending the Condition: At the end of the scene, the Condition fades. An exorcism directed at the gate can end the Condition early. SHADOW GATE Description: The location has a hole punched through the Gauntlet. Spirits — and even incautious people — can cross through it without the use of any powers. The Shadow Gate is visible even to material beings, as the Shadow world and material worlds mix. Causing the Condition: This Condition can be created by using the Shadow Gateway Manifestation Effect on an Open Condition. Very rare summoning rituals can also create this Condition, allowing the spirit being called to access the material world. Ending the Condition: At the end of the scene, the Condition fades. An exorcism directed at the gate can end the Condition early. MATERIALIZED Description: The entity has shifted from ephemeral to material substance, manifesting in physical form. All the rules for ephemeral entities’ traits still apply, except for the effects of being in Twilight. This Condition protects the entity from Essence Bleed for its duration. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created by an entity using the Materialize Manifestation Effect on an Open Condition. If the Open Condition used is on an object or person, the entity must materialize within its Rank in yards. Ending the Condition: Materialization lasts for one hour per success on the activating roll. When the duration ends, the entity fades back into Twilight. Physical contact with a Bane or removal of a prerequisite condition can cause the Condition to end early. FETTERED Prerequisites: The intended subject of this Condition must have the Open Condition, tagged to the entity attempting to cause it. Description: The entity has secured itself to an object or creature. As long as it remains Fettered, the entity is safe from Essence Bleed. The entity remains in Twilight, and must stay within five yards of the Fetter. Most entities Fettering themselves literally hide inside their Fetters if they are small enough. The entity pays one fewer Essence for using Influences on the Fetter, but may not use them or Numina on another target as long as the Fetter lasts. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created by an entity using the Fetter Manifestation Effect. Ending the Condition: Fetters are permanent unless the prerequisite Conditions are ended, or if the subject of the Fetter is destroyed or (if a living being) killed. The entity can voluntarily end the Condition by using the Unfetter Manifestation Effect. A successful exorcism removes this Condition. URGED Description: This animal or human host has been used as a Fetter by an ephemeral being. The entity may read the subject’s thoughts with a successful Power + Finesse roll, contested by Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance. Success reveals surface thoughts. The entity may urge the host to take Avernian Gateways Doorways to the Underworld, also called Avernian gates, exist all over the world, but are invisible to all but a handful of psychics. The gateways are in Twilight, made of ghostly ephemera, and appear in places with the Resonant Condition tagged as “Death” — anywhere people die in large numbers or has a feel of Death about it can house a gate. They remain closed unless they are the nearest gate to a ghost who loses his last Anchor, in which case they open for a turn as his Corpus passes on.

Game Systems 135 a specific action with a successful Power + Finesse roll contested by Resolve + Composure, with an extra die. If the entity wins, the urge is created. Following it rewards the host with a Beat. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created by an entity using the Fetter Manifestation Effect. Ending the Condition: The Urged Condition ends whenever the linked Fetter ends. POSSESSED Description: This object, corpse, or living being is being temporarily controlled by an ephemeral entity. Living hosts are put into a coma-like state while being possessed; they experience the possession as missing time, aside from flashbacks that might come out in dreams or times of stress such as losing Integrity. The entity may not use Numina or Influences while controlling the host, but is safe from Essence Bleed for as long as the possession lasts. The entity may pay one Essence per turn to heal a lethal or bashing wound or a point of structure lost to damage. Corpses that died from damage begin Possession incapacitated, and must be “healed” with Essence Entities possessing inanimate objects or corpses have a great deal of control over their host. An entity controlling an object can’t make it do anything it couldn’t do while being operated, but it can turn switches on and off, operate machinery, use keyboards, and turn dials. Use the entity’s Finesse if dice rolls are necessary. Corpses and other articulated hosts capable of movement, like shop mannequins or industrial robots, use their own Physical Attributes, but use the entity’s Attributes in Social or Mental rolls. By spending a point of Essence, the entity can use its own Attributes instead of the host’s for Physical tasks for a turn, but doing so causes one point of lethal damage or structure loss to the host. Living hosts require more time for the entity to gain full control, and always use their own Attributes. The entity may read the host’s mind with a Finesse Roll at a -4 penalty, use the host’s physical skills at a -3 penalty, and use their social and mental skills at a -4 penalty. These penalties are all reduced by one die per day that the entity has been Fettered to the host. Most possessing entities Fetter themselves to their intended hosts, and use the Possess Manifestation Effect to take full control only in emergencies. To possess a host, the entity must remain in Twilight, superimposed over the host. This means that if the host touches the entity’s bane, or is injured by a weapon made of the bane, the entity will suffer wounds to its Corpus. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created by an entity using the Possess Manifestation Effect.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 136 The object or victim must be under the Open Condition, tagged to the entity. Ending the Condition: The possession lasts for a single scene, unless the entity abandons it early or the host is killed or destroyed. Abjurations, exorcisms, and forced contact with banes and bans can all motivate an entity to release a host. CLAIMED Description: A Claimed object, corpse, creature, or person has been permanently possessed and merges with the entity involved. Unlike Possess, living Claimed aren’t put into a fugue state, but remain mentally active while their soul and the Claiming entity merge together over the course of several days. During the period of fusion, the subject is under all the effects of the Urged Condition, described above. Once a day, starting with the moment the Claimed Condition is created, add one dot of the entity’s Attributes to the host’s, permanently raising them. Power may be assigned to Strength, Intelligence, or Presence, Finesse to Wits, Dexterity, or Manipulation, and Resistance to Stamina, Composure, or Resolve. The host’s physical form begins to mutate, taking on an appearance influenced by the original host and the entity. Claimed corpses add points to Attributes as above, but start with all Mental and Social Attributes at 0. Inanimate objects use the statistics appropriate for their type (Adding Resistance to Structure and Durability, Power to Acceleration, and Finesse to Handling) instead of Physical Attributes, and also start the claiming process with all Mental and Social Attributes at 0. Corpses and inanimate hosts don’t spend the claiming period under the Urged Condition, having no minds of their own to warp. Claimed may use the entity’s Influences, but not their Numina or Manifestation Effects. They may develop supernatural powers as Merits. From the moment the Claimed Condition is laid, the entity is safe from Essence Bleed. The hybrid being that results has the entity’s Essence trait, Virtue, Vice, Fate, Ban, and Bane, but is a material being. Claimed that were once spirits may cross the Gauntlet at a Locus with a successful Intelligence + Presence roll. Claimed that were inanimate objects are fully animate, fusions of spiritual power, metal, and plastic. Causing the Condition: This Condition is created by an entity using the Claim Manifestation Effect. Ending the Condition: Claim is permanent in living hosts unless the entity decides to detach itself, rolling its original Power + Finesse penalized by its Rank in dice and contested by the Claimed hybrid’s Resolve + Composure, including any dots gained from being Claimed. If the entity succeeds, the entity and host are separated. Former hosts are physically and mentally scarred — the physical appearance changes back at the same rate it mutated, and the extra Attribute dots fade at a rate of two per day. The Essence trait and any supernatural powers the Claimed developed immediately vanish. Former Claimed, however, retain the Virtue and Vice of the entity that took them over. In nonliving hosts, Claim is only temporary – once the Claim has fully formed, the host loses one dot of a Physical Attribute (or the equivalent for formerly-inanimate objects) per three days. When any of these Attributes reaches 0, the host disintegrates and the entity is released into Twilight. Numina In addition to Influence and Manifestation, all ephemeral entities have a number of discrete magical powers called Numina. Each Numen is a single ability — activated by a successful Power + Finesse roll unless stated otherwise — linked to the entity’s nature. The Numina described here are deliberately generic. Individual ephemeral beings display their Numen in ways reflecting their type, theme, and biases — a ghost’s Blast is an empty, freezing cold in the bones of its victim, while an angel’s Awe manifests as a terrible, holy aura. Numina with next to their name are usable in conjunction with the Reaching Condition. AGGRESSIVE MEME The entity speaks to a person (it must be in a Condition capable of doing so), and plants an idea in their mind. When that person tells someone else the idea, it takes hold in their mind, too, as well as in the minds of whomever they tell. The Numen costs 7 Essence to activate, and is contested by Resolve + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance. AWE The entity causes terror in anyone who can see it. The Numen costs 3 Essence, and its activation is contested with Presence + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance individually by anyone looking at the entity. Anyone achieving fewer successes than the entity is unable to move or speak for a turn. If the entity gains an exceptional success, the effect lasts three turns. BLAST The entity may wound opponents at a distance. Range is equal to 10 yards per dot of Power, and the entity does not suffer range penalties. If the activation roll succeeds, the Blast wounds as a lethal weapon. The entity may increase the lethality of its Blast by paying Essence — every 2 Essence spent increases the “weapon” by one lethal damage. The maximum weapon bonus is equal to the entity’s Rank. DEMENT The entity may torture its victim’s mind via psychic assault. The Numen costs 1 Essence, and the activation roll is contested by the victim’s Intelligence + Supernatural

Game Systems 137 Tolerance. If the entity succeeds, the victim suffers the Insane Tilt (p. 285) for the rest of the Scene. DRAIN The entity can steal Essence or Willpower (chosen at activation) from a material being. The activation roll is contested by Stamina + Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance. Whichever character — entity or target — gains the most successes receives points of Willpower or Essence equal to successes, while the other party loses the same number. EMOTIONAL AURA The entity sends out a wave of powerful — and distracting — emotion. This Numen costs 1 Essence, and lasts for a scene, or until the entity uses another Numina. The activation roll is made once, but anyone coming within five yards of the entity must make a Resolve + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance roll. If the activation roll had more successes, the victim suffers a -2 dice penalty to all actions as long as the aura remains. If the victim gains more successes, he is immune to the aura unless the entity uses the Numen again. ESSENCE THIEF The entity may steal Essence from and consume ephemeral beings other than its own type — for example, spirits with this Numen may consume ghosts and angels. The Numen costs 1 Essence to activate. FATE SENSE The entity may taste the Fate of a mortal being. The Numen costs 1 Essence, and is contested by Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance. Characters with the Destiny Merit may not contest this Numen. If the entity succeeds, it knows the subject’s Fate and can discern the presence of the Destiny Merit and its rating. FIRESTARTER The entity causes flammable materials to combust. This Numen costs 1 Essence, and causes a small fire to break out per activation success within the entity’s Power in yards. Hallucination The entity may create an illusion experienced by a single target; anything from a sight or sound to an imaginary person that holds a conversation. The Numen costs 1 Essence and is contested by the victim’s Wits + Composure + Supernatural Tolerance. Each success over the contesting roll alters one of the victim’s senses. HOST JUMP The entity may leap from host to host when using the Possess or Claim Manifestations. The current host must touch the intended host while the entity spends 3 Essence, and the new host must be under any prerequisite Conditions. If both prerequisites are met, the entity immediately transfers the Possessed or Claimed Condition to the new host, although Claimed must begin the process of Claiming again. The entity does not need to re-spend Essence on the Manifestation Effect when jumping hosts with this Numen. Living Claim victims vacated with the use of this Numen still suffer the aftereffects listed under the Claimed Condition. IMPLANT MISSION This Numen grants a mortal a vision of a task the entity wishes him to accomplish, and a magical determination to see it through. The entity pays 2 Essence and rolls Power + Finesse. On a success, the subject receives a short vision of whatever the entity wishes him to do, and is under the Obsessed Condition regarding carrying that mission out. INNOCUOUS This Numen does not require a roll to activate and has no cost. The entity is very good at being overlooked. Perception rolls to notice the entity are penalized by two dice. LEFT-HANDED SPANNER The entity disables a device, paying 1 Essence and touching the object if Manifest, or moving its Twilight form to superimpose over it if not. The device must be a human-manufactured object with at least three moving parts. If the activation roll succeeds, the device malfunctions for the number of successes in turns. Using this Numen in combat requires the entity to Grapple and gain control of the object, so it can’t be used this way in Twilight unless the target is as well. MORTAL MASK This Numen disguises a Materialized entity as a human, and can be used at the same time as the Materialize Manifestation Effect. Using the Numen costs 1 Essence, and the human seeming lasts for activation successes in hours. The human “costume” is flawed — witnesses may make a Wits + Composure roll penalized by the entity’s Finesse to realize that something is wrong. Characters able to sense the entity in Twilight do not suffer the penalty.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 138 OMEN TRANCE Once every 24 hours, the entity may enter a trance in order to gain a glimpse of the future. The Numen costs 1 Essence if the entity is trancing on its own behalf, or 3 Essence if it is searching for omens for another. The activation roll is an extended action, lasting at least one scene. If successful, the entity sees a vision of an event that will occur sometime in the next week, which is predisposed to be a warning of danger. PATHFINDER This Numen allows an entity to know the quickest route to a destination. The fastest route isn’t always the safest, and the Numen doesn’t reveal any dangers on the way, only a set of directions to the target. If the destination is the subject of the Safe Place Merit, the activation roll is contested by the lowest Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance among any owners. The Numen costs 1 Essence, and lasts for a scene. If the destination is too far away to reach that quickly, the entity must use the Numen again. RAPTURE The entity forces a response from the pleasure centers of a living being’s brain, granting ecstatic visions, a feeling of communion with the universe, and sensations of bliss. The Numen costs 2 Essence to activate. If successful, the victim suffers the Insensate Tilt (p. 285). If the victim fails a Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance roll, she gains a temporary derangement for the entity’s Power in days, in a form that binds her closer to the entity’s wishes. REGENERATE The entity can use Essence to heal bashing and lethal wounds on its Corpus. This Numen does not require a roll to activate, but costs 1 Essence and heals one level of damage. The entity must reactivate the Numen each turn to heal more severe wounds. Bashing damage is healed first, then lethal. RESURRECTION This Numen — only available to Rank 4+ angels and spirits of healing – literally raises the dead. The Numen costs 10 Essence to use, and the activation roll is penalized by one die per day the subject has been dead. Supernatural beings that have already died as part of their transformation — vampires, mummies, and Sin-Eaters — can’t be resurrected, nor can anyone who died of natural causes. Other supernatural beings lose their powers when resurrected. Mages become Sleepwalkers, and werewolves, wolf-blooded. SEEK The entity can sense the presence of suitable Conditions from a distance. The base range is two miles per Rank; entities may spend an Essence to multiply this by 10. If successful on a Finesse roll, the entity becomes aware of the direction and distance to the nearest suitable Anchor, Infrastructure, or Resonant Condition. SPEED The entity accelerates into a blur of movement. The entity chooses whether to spend 2 or 4 Essence when activating this Numen. Spending 2 Essence doubles its Speed for the remainder of the scene, while spending 4 Essence triples it. SIGN The entity creates messages or images in any media in the same way that media could be used by a mortal— it can write in the condensation on cold glass, produce images on computer screens, and send audible messages via phone lines. The Numen costs 1 Essence to activate, and if successful creates a single message. STALWART The entity appears armored in Twilight form, and uses Resistance instead of the lower of Power or Finesse as its Defense score. TELEKINESIS The entity can manipulate objects without using a Manifestation Effect. This Numen costs 1 Essence, and successes on the activation roll become the entity’s “Strength” when attempting to lift or throw an item. Fine motor control is impossible using this Numen. Mortal Interaction Mortals can interact with ephemeral entities in many more ways than as simple victims to Urge, Possess, or Claim, both for and against an entity’s interests. Characters with an Unseen Sense for ghosts, spirits, and angels can sense those beings’ presence, even if the entity is in Twilight. Mystery Cults dedicated to serving particular entities attempt to assist their master in creating the necessary Conditions — often unwittingly. An angel doesn’t need to explain to the mortals it forces to carry out strange actions that it is building Infrastructure, let alone explain why the God-Machine needs it to. And then, faced with humanity’s fate as a resource for alien intruders, some mortals fight back.

Game Systems 139 Research Most deliberate interactions with entities — summoning, exorcising, and abjuration — rely on having as much knowledge of the entity in question as the mortal can get. Research rolls to determine bans and banes are handled as extended Intelligence + Occult rolls for the most part, but many entities are protected by deliberate secrecy, obscurity, or don’t take much interest in human affairs so haven’t had their details recorded. The target number of successes for a research roll is determined by the entity’s type and Rank, as follows: Rank Successes 1 5 2 7 3 10 4 14 5 20 Researching a ghost reduces the target number of successes by two, while researching an angel increases it by four. Reaching the target number reveals the entity’s ban or bane, while an exceptional success reveals both. Partial successes should reveal increasing information about the entity, as the character learns more about their nature, habits, and history. Resourceful investigators find other ways to learn the weaknesses of an ephemeral foe, though. Many entities are willing to sell out their fellows’ secrets in exchange for something. Many bans are also rather obvious, especially for low-Rank entities, and a mortal might simply try to use the right thing by chance. Contact Faced with a haunting, or what appears to be a haunting, many occult investigators’ first course of action is to attempt to make contact with the entity involved. Unless the entity actually has the Image or Materialize Manifestations, or the Signs Numen, this is a slow process of trial, error, and research that takes up several actions, each roll relating to one tested attempt to understand what the entity wants. Supernatural equipment can help the character in his endeavor. Some mortals, however, are true mediums, able to make it easier for an entity to contact them. Doing so opens them up to the risk of being used for the entity’s own ends; see the Medium Merit on p. 57. Summoning and Exorcism For a solitary occultist attempting to force a ghost to appear, or a shaman inviting a spirit to Influence an area, occult libraries are filled with summoning rites. None of them, strictly speaking, actually work, in that without supernatural power it’s impossible to compel an ephemeral entity to appear, but the rituals and practices of a summoning can often, by accident or design, create the Conditions an entity would need to appear if it were so inclined. Esoteric Armory (• to •••••) Effect: Your character is the go-to guy when one needs a knife carved from the bone of a martyred saint, a hawthorn stake, rock salt shotgun shells, the powdered remains of cremated suicides or any number of other things. No matter how strange the need, you’ve got it covered. After successfully researching an ephemeral entity’s Bane, compare your dots in this Merit to the entity’s Rank. If the merit is equal to or greater than its Rank, you’ve got what you need in your Armory. You should decide along with your Storyteller where the Armory is, though; a one-dot Esoteric Armory can fit in a large bag, but a four- or five-dot one will fill a house. A summoning is made up of several research actions (Intelligence + Occult rolls, with bonuses and penalties for access to proper literature) to narrow down the requirements for the rest of the rites. The remaining actions serve as alternate ways to cause the Influence Conditions in the desired location. By acquiring a ghost’s bones, or researching his Anchor and using it in the rite, the summoner sets up the Anchor Condition. By burning rare materials, the area is made Resonant with a fire spirit. By gathering people who can see the gears and following the God-Machine’s instructions, Infrastructure begins to build. Using the fruits of their researches, the Cultists customize Conditions for their intended guest, advancing the Condition to Open… and allowing it to Manifest. Summoning rituals involving bringing an entity forth from another world must include a step where the gateway is opened — summonings for spirits must be performed in locii, and those for ghosts near a gate to the Underworld. These are even more difficult to pull off and are apt to be interrupted by meddling investigators, but are the only way to allow truly powerful entities access to the world. Occult literature is full of proposed ways to control summoned entities. These usually consist of banes and bans, which the summoner can use as leverage. Some spirits really are bound via their bans to serve mortals that raise them in the correct manner, while others will Blast anyone presumptuous enough to try. Exorcism is the opposite of summoning, but works in exactly the same way — a series of actions that interact with the Conditions an entity is relying on to Manifest or feed. The classic image of an exorcism, priests sealing themselves into a room with a possessed victim to drive the entity out with prayer, confrontation, and willpower, is a combination of exorcism to chip away at the entity’s conditions, bindings and wards to keep it from escaping or summoning aid, abjurations to provide a spiritual kick, and the use of as many banes and bans as the exorcist has been able to research.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 140 Abjuration While exorcism is an attempt to tackle the Conditions underpinning an entity’s presence by mundane means or the use of bans and banes, abjuration fights the supernatural with the supernatural, pitting the user’s soul and Resolve against the entity he is attempting to force away. Although many exorcists, and therefore many people knowledgeable enough about the ephemeral to attempt abjuration, are religious, abjuration does not require religious faith to work. It’s a consequence of the human soul; by stilling and focusing the mind, and concentrating on the higher self, a skilled abjurist can cause his soul to affect Twilight, forcing ephemeral beings away and clearing an area of Influence. The abjuration effect must be performed as a meditative exercise that helps the user stay calm, even in the face of a rampaging, Materialized spirit. Religious abjurists use repeated prayer, while more secular occultists rely on incantations learned from their researches. Anything that instills the proper calm and reverence will work, though — a soldier might attempt to abjure a ghost by reciting the patriotic oath of his country. The abjuration itself is a Resolve + Composure roll contested by the entity’s Power + Resistance. As Abjuration channels the higher self, working the ritual by a means that matches the abjurist’s Virtue provides a two dice bonus to the dice pool. A strong psyche is also useful — characters with Integrity 10 receive a three-die bonus, Integrity 9 characters gain two dice, and Integrity 8 one die. Conversely, if the abjuration calls on the abjurist’s Vice, the dice pool is penalized by two dice. Low-Integrity characters suffer a onedie penalty per Integrity dot below 6, -1 for Integrity 5, -2 for Integrity 4, and so on. If the abjuration is successful, all Conditions tagged by the entity in the abjurist’s Willpower in yards are suppressed for one day. On an exceptional success, the abjurist also becomes an extra bane for the entity until its Conditions return. Warding and Binding Occult lore is full of references to sealing locations from spirits and ghosts, either to bind them inside or keep them from entering. Chalk circles, protective charms in windows, even a simple horseshoe above a threshold. Most of these tales have nothing substantial to them. Some are half-remembered references to bans or banes, or the weaknesses of supernatural — but still physical — creatures. A few, though, describe true warding or binding rituals. Warding and binding are a combination of abjuration and an entity’s bane, empowered to create a temporary ban that prevents the entity from crossing in to or out of an area defined by the ritualist. Instead of confronting the entity directly as in abjuration, the ritualist marks the boundary she intends to protect with the entity’s bane. She doesn’t have to mark a complete boundary — her concept of the area she’s protecting is what’s important. Marking doors and windows with lamb’s blood to keep out a spirit that can’t touch it will prevent that spirit from simply floating through the wall while in Twilight, and carefully drawing a sigil on the floor will serve to trap the angel whose name it is. If the ritualist doesn’t have the proper bane for her ritual’s subject, it fails automatically, so the most important part of warding is getting that detail right. Once that’s done, and the area has been marked, the ritualist performs whatever abjuration method she knows, focusing on suffusing the area with the essence of the entity’s bane. Performing the ritual requires a Presence + Occult roll, modified by the ritualist’s Integrity as per an abjuration, and further penalized by the entity’s Rank. A further modifier depends on the size of the area being warded. Area Modifier Small area within a location, up to a sixfoot area +1 Single room, or vehicle 0 Two story, suburban building -1 Larger structures levy increasing penalties; an additional -1 for every equivalent of a family home. Most superstructures, like skyscrapers, trains, government buildings, and hospitals are too large to be effectively warded. If successful, the entity described in the ritual treats attempting to move in to or out of the warded area as though it were against its ban. The effect lasts for successes in days, or is broken if the marking of the boundary is disturbed — a determined entity can suffer the injury from touching the bane material marker in order to break the ward. Horrors They’re out there. Skulking just beyond the flickering light of the street lamps, glimpsed for a second in the glare of high beams, felt in that tension between your shoulderblades. The freaks. The monsters. The horrors. Some of them want to kill you, crack your bones and suck them dry. Some of them want to ride you around like a puppet made of meat, or lay their young to incubate in your cavities. Some of them want stranger things: to build towers of bone and bile and babies’ shoes, or to open a door between here and the howling silence Outside. Still others don’t want anything from you at all; maybe they want revenge on the seven teenagers who left them to die in that boating accident, or just to tell their loved ones to move on with their lives. Nevertheless, they’re out there, strange and wondrous and terrifying, waiting to be discovered. Creating Horrors for your Chronicles of Darkness stories is a multistep process not too dissimilar to a player creating a character. This section provides a step-by-step breakdown of the process, along with benchmarks and guidelines for assigning Trait values. The guidelines presented here are just that: guidelines. Since Horrors aren’t required (or even expected) to have the same rough parity of ability that beginning characters are, you should feel free to adjust or outright ignore the Trait values presented here.

Horrors 141 Horrors and Beats The primary game-mechanical effect of Aspirations is to reward players for accomplishing their characters’ goals with Beats. Since Storyteller characters don’t track Beats or Experiences, fulfilling an Aspiration instead grants the character a point of Willpower. This point of Willpower is temporary and goes away at the end of the scene, unless the Aspiration fulfilled was a Horror’s feeding Aspiration, in which case the Willpower point lasts until spent. The same rule applies any time a Storyteller character, whether Horror or otherwise, would otherwise earn a Beat: resolving Conditions, turn- ing a failure into a dramatic failure, and so on. Note also that these guidelines are for creating major Horrors: the core, recurring antagonists of your stories. To quickly create minions, zombie hordes, or even just terribly potent evils that only have a limited screen time, see Brief Nightmares on p. 143. Likewise, these rules focus on corporeal entities. If you’re creating a ghost, spirit, or a stranger sort of ephemeral Horror, see the Ephemeral Entities rules on p. 122. Step One: Concept The obvious first step when creating a Horror is to decide what sort of beast you’re creating. Chances are you already have a starting point for this by the time you sit down to create a Horror. If you know your next story is going to be a tale of Faustian bargains and unholy sacrifices, for example, you probably know your Horror is going to be some sort of demon or warlock. Will it be a wrathful brute, hungry to share its rage with anyone it lures into its lair? Or will it be a subtle, deceitful thing, seducing the unwary into selling their souls? Folklore, mythology, and popular culture can all provide useful inspiration here. Consider also the role your Horror will play in the story. Most Chronicles of Darkness stories are about investigating, encountering, and (hopefully) surviving the supernatural rather than confronting it head on. Certainly monsters that threaten death and dismemberment are a common feature, but when designing your Horror, you might want to approach it from an angle of unfolding mystery rather than what will make a cool fight scene. At this point, you should also give thought to your Horror’s Aspirations. Intelligent monsters usually have three, just like the players’ characters: typically one long term and two short term. Animalistic monsters usually have only one. If your Horror must feed on something to survive, or is otherwise compelled (such as a wendigo’s hunger for human flesh or a masked, undead slasher’s need to punish those who indulge their Vices), that should definitely be one of its Aspirations. Further Aspirations give characters a point of entry toward understanding the Horror, but more importantly give the Horror much-needed depth and humanity. An Aspiration like “do no harm to children” gives a monster a touch of sympathy, prompts questions that can help you fill out the Horror’s backstory, and provides an avenue of investigation for characters. Unlike characters, who typically gain new Aspirations when they fulfill one, many Horrors keep the same Aspirations even after fulfilling them, or tweak them slightly to make them more broadly applicable. A vengeful revenant who kills her murderers is more likely to replace that Aspiration with “kill anyone who reminds me of my murderers” than with “become the crime boss of the port district.” Step Two: Potency Potency is a measure of a Horror’s raw supernatural power. Unlike most Traits, Potency is rated from 1 to 10 dots. All Horrors have a Potency rating of at least 1. Use the following benchmarks to determine your Horror’s Potency, which in turn determines a suggested range of points you’ll spend on Attributes, Skills, Merits, and Dread Powers later. Potency roughly corresponds with an ephemeral entity’s Rank, and with various traits possessed by the protagonists of other Chronicles of Darkness game lines. In addition to determining the number of points recommended for building a Horror, Potency confers the following effects: Willpower Capacity: Horrors add their Potency to their Resolve + Composure to determine their Willpower. Willpower Expenditure: A Horror may spend 1 point of Willpower in a turn per dot of Potency. It may not, however, spend more than 1 Willpower on the same effect. A Potency 3 Horror may not spend 3 Willpower points to give itself a +9 bonus on an action, for example, but it could spend those 3 Willpower points to bolster its action, increase its Defense, and activate a Dread Power in the same turn. Supernatural Tolerance: Horrors are more resistant to the supernatural. Add the Horror’s Potency dots to any contested roll to resist a supernatural power. Step Three: Anchors Horrors typically have Virtues and Vices just like other characters, but what a monster considers “virtuous” or “vice ridden” might vary significantly from what a human would. To make your Horror feel alien and incomprehensible, consider strange Anchors like Murderous as a Virtue or Silent as a Vice. To highlight the core of humanity in even the most twisted of Horror, follow the guidelines on p. 27 for choosing a player character’s Virtue and Vice. Like Aspirations, Anchors should provide the characters with inroads for discovering, investigating, and ultimately surviving the Horror, so pick Anchors that you’re sure will come up in the story (or, alternately, craft the story to highlight the Anchors of a Horror you’ve already created).

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 142 Potency Potency Trait Limits** Attribute Dots Skill Dots Dread Powers Merit Dots 1 5 dots 15–18 10 3 3 2 6 dots 19–22 15 3 5 3 7 dots 23–26 20 3 7 4 8 dots 27–30 25 4 9 5 9 dots 31–34 30 4 11 6 10 dots 35–38 35 4 13 7 10 dots 39–42 40 5 15 8 10 dots 43–46 45 6 17 9 10 dots 47–50 50 7 19 10 10 dots 51+ 55 8 21 ** These maximums represent permanent Trait dots, not Traits boosted by Dread Powers or other effects. Step Four: Attributes Unlike characters, Horrors do not prioritize Attribute categories. They simply receive a lump sum of points, which you may spend as you see fit. Horrors generally work best and are most interesting when they have very clear, obvious strengths and weaknesses; jack-of-all-trades monsters with an even spread in all nine Attributes are boring and don’t provide any signposts for how characters might deal with them. Strongly consider identifying one or two Attributes as the Horror’s greatest strength and putting the maximum number of dots in those Traits. Likewise, consider one or two Attributes the Horror is lacking and leaving them at one or two dots. Step Five: Dread Powers Choose a number of Dread Powers as indicated by the Horror’s Potency. This step comes earlier in the process than you might expect because the inhuman powers of a Horror are as core to its being as how strong or fast it is. Some Dread Powers (e.g. Natural Weaponry) have multiple levels, like Style Merits. Each dot of such powers counts as an additional Dread Power. Step Six: Skills Once again, don’t bother prioritizing Skill categories. Assign the Skill Points derived from the Horror’s Potency as you see fit. Horrors don’t generally bother with Specialties; just give them additional Skill dots. If you feel a Horror really needs Skill Specialties, assign between three and five here as well. If the Horror you’re creating is mindless or animalistic and you’re having trouble filling in the full allotment of Skill dots, you can certainly use fewer than provided. However, you might also consider using the rules for Brief Nightmares, below; they’re specifically designed to quickly create Horrors with a more limited shtick. Step Seven: Merits Assign Merits here, if your Horror needs them. Even if you’re creating a Horror that will be used in a fight, keep in mind that piling combat-based Merits on top of Dread Powers can make for an especially vicious fight. Unless your Horror is a complete loner, strongly consider favoring Social Merits like Allies, Contacts, and Staff. These Merits provide more hooks to draw players into the monster’s orbit, and players may well have their own Merits they can turn against the Horror’s. Remember also that these Merits can easily represent people enthralled, enslaved, or intimidated into serving the Horror: your monstrosity need not be a corporate hotshot or an old-money aristocrat to have Retainers. On the flip side, don’t bother with Merits that simply give flat, numerical bonuses to Traits, like Fleet of Foot or Giant. Since you’ll be deciding the Horror’s Speed, Size, and so on directly, just make them a little bigger. Likewise, it’s a safe assumption that most Horrors don’t need to buy Merits like Tolerance for Biology. Step Eight: Advantages Finally, calculate your Horror’s Advantages. If any of the numbers derived here don’t feel right, by all means change them. The formulae for calculating Advantage are there to give you a ballpark range and are based on the values for normal people. Horrors are anything but normal, though, so feel free to ignore the formulae and go with what feels right.

Horrors 143 Willpower A Horror’s Willpower equals its Resolve + Composure + Potency. Remember that a Horror may spend a number of Willpower points equal to its Potency each turn. Integrity Unless your Horror is a human being with some monstrous power, or has a part of its mind that is still human, it doesn’t have an Integrity score. If it is, its Integrity is whatever seems appropriate. See p. 73 for more on Integrity and what different dot ratings indicate. If you’re so inclined and have access to other Chronicles of Darkness rulebooks, you can even give your Horror an Integrity-analogue Trait like a vampire’s Humanity or a werewolf’s Harmony. You may have to adjust the various example breaking points to fit your vision, but this can make your Horror seem even stranger and more alien. Size Your Horror can be as big or as small as you want. A typical adult human is Size 5; see p.26 for a chart of sample Sizes you can use as benchmarks. Remember that Size factors into your Horror’s Health as well. For really large, unusual Horrors like a sentient, hateful house, consider breaking its Size (and therefore Health) into discrete chunks rather than giving the Horror a single 75-box Health track. Speed A Horror’s Speed is equal to Strength + Dexterity + Species Factor. A Horror can move this many meters in one turn. Like Size, Speed can be whatever you feel appropriate: an average human is Speed 5. Horrors can have negative Speed, but unless they’re completely immobile by nature (e.g. The Tree That Hates), they always have a Speed of at least 1. Some Horrors have multiple Speeds, depending on their method of locomotion. For example, a giant bat-like monstrosity might be a swift and graceful flier, but clumsy and awkward on land. If your Horror can fly, swim, burrow, etc., note those movement modes and Speed here as well. For more overtly supernatural forms of movement like turning into fog or stepping through mirrors, see Dread Powers. Health A Horror’s Health is its Size + Stamina. Initiative Modifier Initiative Modifier is equal to the Horror’s Dexterity + Composure. Defense Defense is equal to the lower of a Horror’s Wits or Dexterity, plus its Athletics Skill. Weakness (Optional) Not all Horrors have an explicit weakness, but many do. If it seems appropriate, give your Horror a Ban and/or a Bane, as described on p. 128. Use the Horror’s Potency as its Rank for determining the severity of the effect. Finishing Touches Do one last check to make sure your Horror is doing what you need it to in the story. If you anticipate the Horror confronting players head on, spot check its dice pools against the characters’; if it looks like the Horror will completely outclass the players (e.g. reducing even their best efforts to a chance die or rolling more than twice as many dice as the best dice pool the players can muster), either make sure the players have another way to survive the Horror or tone it down a bit. Conversely, if the players’ dice pools seem overmatching, don’t be afraid to beef up the Horror a bit. Brief Nightmares Not every lurking horror needs the full attention of the process described above. Sometimes the Horror has minions that harry the characters, other times the threat is in the form of a horde of hungry ghouls rather than a single beast, and other times the Horror is just a mindless brute that knows nothing but the chase and the kill. In these cases, you can quickly create a suitable Horror by just establishing a few dice pools. Just as with a full Horror, distill the monster’s concept down to a few words — “flesh-hungry ghoul” or “albino sewer gator,” maybe. Give it a single Aspiration, probably some Nightmare Dice Pool Horror Type Best Dice Pool Worst Dice Pool All Other Pools Dread Powers Willpower /Scene Minion 5 Chance 2 3 2 Horde 7 1 3 5 3 Lone Terror 10 2 5 7 6

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 144 Horror Creation Quick Reference Here are the basic steps for creating a Horror. STEP ONE: CONCEPT Come up with a concept and three Aspirations for the Horror. STEP TWO: ANCHORS Choose a Virtue and a Vice for the Horror. STEP THREE: POTENCY Choose your Horror’s Potency. Note down Attribute, Skill, Merit, and Dread Power dots determined by Potency. STEP FOUR: ATTRIBUTES Assign Attributes based on Potency. STEP FIVE: DREAD POWERS Assign Dread Powers based on Potency. STEP SIX: SKILLS Assign Skills based on Potency. Choose three to five Skill Specialties, if desired. STEP SEVEN: MERITS Assign Merits based on Potency. STEP EIGHT: ADVANTAGES Willpower is equal to Resolve + Composure + Potency. Integrity is nonexistent or whatever is appropriate. Size and Speed Factor are as appropriate. Health is Size + Stamina. Speed equals Strength + Dexterity + Size. Initiative Modifier is Dexterity + Composure. Defense is the lower of Wits or Dexterity, plus Athletics. Ban and/or Bane optional. form of feeding or compulsion. Then, decide whether it’s the minion of a greater threat, part of a horde, or a lone terror. Then refer to the chart at the bottom of the previous page to calculate its dice pools. For the Horror’s best dice pool, describe two or three things that are its particular strengths. Don’t think in terms of Attributes or Skills but in terms of actions. Don’t think “Brawl” or “Persuasion,” think “rip you apart” or “enthrall with a glance.” The Horror uses the listed dice pool for those actions. Similarly, list one or two things the Horror is especially bad at and use the Worst Dice Pool column to determine its dice pools. For all other actions, the Horror uses the All Other Pools value. Then jot down a few Dread Powers to fine tune your Horror. If Dread Powers have a dice pool to activate, use the Horror’s Best Dice Pool. Brief Nightmares don’t have a Willpower rating or Willpower points. Instead, they can spend a number of Willpower per scene as indicated by the chart above. If they earn additional Willpower, as from fulfilling an Aspiration or resolving a Condition, they can spend those extra points, but only during the current scene. Unless the Horror is going to engage in combat or resisted actions, that’s all you’ll need. If you find yourself needing Advantages like Health or Defense, use the following benchmarks as guidelines. As always, adjust as you see fit; maybe you want your ghouls to die quickly, or your lumbering troll to have lots of Health but little Defense. • Health equals 2 + Best Dice Pool • Defense equals All Other Pools • Speed equals 5 + All Other Pools or Best Dice Pool, as appropriate • Armor Rating and Damage are determined by Dread Powers, if any. • For resisted actions, use All Other Pools value as resistance Attribute unless Best Dice Pool or Worst Dice Pool actions would be more relevant. Dread Powers The things that stalk the night aren’t just stronger, smarter, and tougher than you. They have strange, terrible powers you’d count yourself lucky to walk away alive from. The sampling below is by no means exhaustive; feel free to devise new Dread Powers as you need, reskin the mechanics of those presented below into whatever you like, or raid the powers of the monsters in other Chronicles of Darkness games for inspiration. These powers are presented without dice pools attached; when you choose a Dread Power for your Horror, think about how the creature uses that power and define an appropriate dice pool. A silver-tongued demon who bargains for mortal souls might use Wits + Manipulation vs. Composure for its Soul Thief power, while a desiccated, breath-stealing corpse might use Strength + Occult vs. Stamina to pry its victims’ jaws apart and suck the breath from her lungs. Similarly, there aren’t restrictions on things like range or other requirements for these powers. Again, look to your vision of the creature and establish any restrictions that makes sense. That soul-buying demon above might need to engage in reasonable conversation to trick mortals into bargaining away their souls (and thus can’t use Soul Thief in any situation where Social Maneuvering would be impossible), while the breath-drinking corpse might have to establish a grapple before it can steal your soul along with your breath.

Horrors 145 BEASTMASTER The creature has mastery over lesser beasts. By spending 1 Willpower, it can conjure up a swarm of vermin, small animals, fish, or birds as appropriate to its nature. These animals will obey its commands, and it can communicate with them clearly. It can also use this power on a single larger animal. CHAMELEON HORROR The creature can blend into its surrounding environment, matching not just the colors but even the textures and characteristics of what lies around it; this applies a -3 penalty on all rolls to perceive it, increased to -6 if it remains still. DISCORPORATE If the creature suffers damage that would kill it (or even if it merely wants to escape the scene), it may discorporate: its body dissolves into a huge swarm of vermin, carrion eaters, or similar small, repellent beasts, running in all directions. If even one escapes, the creature’s spirit survives. The creature may be able to reform in the next scene, or it might take an hour, a day, or even longer to pull itself back together. EYE SPY The creature has a specific form of remote viewing it can practice. It might be able to see through any surveillance camera attached to a network it is accessing, or view from the eyes of a raven that it has touched; perhaps it can pluck one of its eyes out and leave the bloodied organ behind to observe. Using this ability requires the expenditure of 1 Willpower per hour. The creature remains aware of its surroundings while surveilling. FIRE ELEMENTAL The creature’s body is made of fire, or perhaps it can cause its flesh to ignite and char with horrific burns. Anyone within a yard of it suffers three points of lethal damage per turn from the blaze. The creature is immune to damage from heat or fire. INFLUENCE (• TO •••••) Much like a spirit or ghost, this Horror has Influence over a certain phenomenon. Using Influence costs Willpower instead of Essence and, unless the activation is directly opposed by a character, doesn’t require a roll. For contested or resisted actions, decide on an Attribute + Skill dice pool that fits with the monster’s nature. GREMLIN Mechanical and electrical devices fail in the creature’s presence. Lights flicker, cell phones get no reception, televisions and machinery randomly turn on and off. In addition, the creature may spend 1 Willpower to either disable any device with mechanical or electrical components or seize control of such a device. This effect can turn an equipment bonus into a penalty or, if the device is capable of causing harm, lets the creature attack a character holding or standing near the device using an appropriate dice pool. The attack deals lethal damage and uses the device’s equipment bonus as a damage modifier. HOME GROUND The creature has a specific form of home ground on which it gains supernatural bonuses. This might be a certain building or grove, or it could be the blood of a fresh kill or ash from a house it has burned down. While on its home ground, the creature adds three dice to all its physical dice pools and Influence rolls, reduces all damage suffered by three, and gains a +3 bonus to its rolls to resist supernatural effects. HUNTER’S SENSES The creature has incredibly honed senses for a specific type of prey. Against that prey — redheads, teenagers, people descended from the men who killed it — the creature gains a +4 bonus to all Perception rolls, and applies 9-Again to the dice pool. HYPNOTIC GAZE The creature’s gaze can charm and beguile. When meeting the target’s gaze, it can spend 1 Willpower and roll Presence + Persuasion contested by the target’s Composure. If successful, the creature counts as having a perfect impression against the target for Social maneuvers until the end of the scene. IMMORTAL The creature isn’t bound by mortal laws of life and death. It’s not indestructible, per se, but if it’s killed by anything other than its Bane, it just comes back in a later scene like nothing happened. Even if it’s destroyed with its Bane, it’s never really gone — some accursed ritual, astrological conjunction, or freak occurrence can always bring the creature back for a sequel story.

146 Horrors and wonders-antagonists JUMP SCARE The creature appears suddenly or lurches into abrupt action just when you thought it was down for the count. By spending 1 Willpower, the creature may resolve the Shaken condition on another character, choosing which action will automatically fail. The character still earns a Beat as normal. Alternately, the creature may spend 1 Willpower to turn the automatic failure caused by a character resolving the Shaken Condition into a dramatic failure. In this case, the character earns two Beats (one for resolving the Condition, one for the dramatic failure). PRODIGIOUS LEAP The creature can make great, bounding leaps; by spending 1 Willpower, it can jump about four stories straight up or across a six-lane highway (or the equivalent distance). MADNESS AND TERROR The monster’s gaze (or perhaps its voice, touch, or toxic blood) induces madness and terror in its victims. By expending 1 Willpower and making a roll of an appropriate dice pool contested by the victim’s Composure, the Horror may inflict one of the following Conditions on the victim: Guilty, Shaken, or Spooked. For 3 Willpower it may instead inflict the Broken, Fugue, or Madness Conditions. MAZE The creature can turn a structure into something out of an M. C. Escher painting, creating an insane maze. By spending 3 Willpower and touching the building, it turns the interior chambers into a tangled mess of corridors and rooms that lead back on themselves; this effect lasts for an hour. Anyone other than the creature who attempts to move through the building must succeed at a Wits + Composure check minus the creature’s Resolve each time they attempt to leave the area or progress through it to somewhere specific; if they fail they are unable to progress and simply get more lost. MIRACLE The monster is capable of performing miraculous feats at the request of humans. Miracles include, but aren’t necessarily limited to:

147 Horrors • Removing (or applying) any Condition or Tilt (or similar affliction not modeled by these mechanics). • Granting any Merit, Skill, or Attribute at 5 dots. • Causing someone to die. • Fulfilling an Aspiration of the victim. The Horror cannot do any of these things unless explicitly asked to by a living human being. Some Horrors can grant virtually any wish imaginable, others might only be able to grant one very specific request. Sometimes it’s not the monster itself that grants the wish, but a part of its body; demon blood might cure all sickness, while the bile that seeps from the bandages of the One-Eyed King ensures that you’ll never be poor again. Most Horrors can only grant one to three wishes to a given person, and wishing for more wishes is, of course, verboten. Finally, all magic of this sort comes with a price. When the Horror grants a victim’s wish, one of the victim’s Aspirations is destroyed utterly. The character will never be able to fulfill it or replace it with another Aspiration. MIST FORM The creature can turn itself into a gaseous form by spending 1 Willpower, whether becoming pure air, some sort of misty miasma, a cloud of blowing leaves, or a swarm of crows. This form lasts for a scene or until the creature leaves it, allowing it to fly at its base Speed, slip through cracks, and flow around obstacles. NATURAL WEAPONS (• TO •••) The creature is armed with formidable natural weaponry, whether savage jaws, rending talons, bony spurs, or metallic blades. The weaponry has a weapon modifier and armorpiercing quality equal to the number of dots in this Dread Power. If the creature’s natural weaponry includes a bite, it doesn’t need to establish a grapple in order to bite. NUMEN In lieu of a Dread Power, the creature may select a Numen from the Ephemeral Entities rules (see p. 136). The Numen costs Willpower instead of Essence, and if it has a dice pool, select an appropriate Attribute + Skill for the Horror. KNOW SOUL The creature can see into the depths of its victim’s soul. By spending 1 Willpower, it automatically learns the victim’s Virtue, Vice, Aspirations, and current Integrity. By spending an additional Willpower point, it learns the circumstances of the character’s most recent failed breaking point. Subsequent Willpower points reveal older breaking points. If the creature uses its knowledge against the victim, it earns an exceptional success on a roll of three successes or more. REALITY STUTTER The creature’s presence sets reality stuttering and convulsing, allowing it to flicker from place to place. By reflexively spending 1 Willpower when it moves, the creature can translocate itself to any location it can see up to its Speed in meters away, seeming to observers to just spasm in and out of reality as it goes. Doing so adds +2 to its Defense for the turn. REGENERATE (• TO •••••) The creature possesses incredible powers of regeneration. As a reflexive action once per turn, the creature can spend 1 Willpower per dot in the Regenerate Dread Power, healing one point of lethal damage or two points of bashing damage for each Willpower expended in this way. SNARE The creature can create a snare that will entrap victims, whether sticky webs, grasping roots or whipping metal cables. By spending 1 Willpower, the creature denotes an area of up to 10 square yards, and can attempt to grapple any victims in the area using the snare, using its own Attributes and Skills with a +3 bonus to the dice pool. SKIN-TAKER The creature can steal the face and skin of another. It must kill the victim first, then spend 2 Willpower and merge the features of the corpse with its own. The change is permanent; it cannot return to an earlier face and appearance. SOUL THIEF The creature is capable of stealing human souls, perhaps for sustenance, perhaps just for its own sick amusement. When you give a creature this Dread Power, specify some restriction or condition that it must fulfill to steal a soul; maybe it has to trick the victim into offering it up willingly, or has to drag its victim back to its lair and attach him to some infernal device to extract the soul. Once the restriction is met, the creature may spend 3 Willpower and roll an appropriate dice pool, contested by the victim’s Resolve. If the creature succeeds, it steals the victim’s soul and inflicts the Soulless Condition. The victim (or her friends) may be able to find a way to restore her soul — perhaps by killing the creature, perhaps by stealing into its lair and finding the correct urn out of a collection of hundreds.

Horrors and wonders-antagonists 148 SURPRISE ENTRANCE No matter how secure its victims think they are, by spending 1 Willpower the creature may suddenly appear in the scene. Perhaps it can manifest out of higher-dimensional space via any right angle, emerge from any reflective surface, or it can simply burst through the wall. Any character witnessing this entrance must succeed on a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll or gain the Shaken Condition. If the characters have actively taken appropriate measures to keep the Horror out (barring and locking the door, smashing all the mirrors they can find, etc.) it will take the creature one full turn to break through, giving the characters time to react. If not, it’s just there as a reflexive action and can take one more action before anyone can react. TOXIC (• OR ••) The creature has a poisonous or diseased bite, or perhaps its very presence is pestilential. The one-dot version of this Dread Power inflicts the moderate version of either the Poisoned or Sick Tilts; the two-dot version inflicts the grave version of the Tilt. This can either happen automatically when the creature inflicts damage, or it can spend 1 Willpower and roll an appropriate dice pool contested by the victim’s Stamina, depending on the nature of the Horror. UNBREAKABLE The creature is nearly indestructible. Any attack that does not score an exceptional success inflicts only a single point of bashing damage. Exceptional successes inflict damage as normal. If the creature has a weakness of some sort, attacks incorporating that weakness bypass this power. WALL CLIMB The creature can walk up walls or even cling to the ceiling, and can move its full Speed while doing so. Black-Eyed Kids “Please ma’am, we just need to come in for a moment to use your phone. You needn’t be afraid. We’re just little children.” Background: Though they echo older tales of monsters that use innocent guises to prey on the unwary, Black-Eyed Kids are a recent phenomenon. Stories of encounters with strangely articulate, menacing children first surfaced on Internet message boards devoted to paranormal phenomena. According to the predominant narrative, the children appear unexpectedly in a place they shouldn’t be — in a parking garage at three in the morning, at the door of a farmhouse miles away from anything — and ask for assistance, usually in the form of a ride home or access to a telephone. The witness finds herself overcome by intense feelings of dread, and the longer she resists acquiescing to the children’s’ requests, the angrier they seem to get. The story culminates with a sudden realization that the children’s’ eyes are solid, unrelieved, black, at which point the witness flees. So far no one has posted a story in which the encounter ends with someone actually helping the children, so naturally the Internet assumes the worst. Description: Black-Eyed children look to be anywhere between seven and 13 years old. They almost always appear in pairs, or sometimes groups of three, and usually look dissimilar enough from each other to discount the possibility that they’re related. They’re usually dressed in dark-colored hoodies, jeans, and tennis shoes, though the older-appearing ones are sometimes described as looking vaguely “goth” or as wearing suits or formalwear. They’re uniformly pale or ashen complexioned, and they speak very precisely, with a confidence not often heard from children talking to strange adults. As the name suggests, their most distinctive feature is their solid black eyes, undifferentiated across sclera, iris, and pupil. Storytelling Hints: Given their pallor, adult mannerisms, and frequent insistence on being invited into homes or cars, Black-Eyed Kids are often identified as vampires. They’re not. You’ve heard of Men in Black, those strange, probably not human visitors who show up in the wake of paranormal experiences and threaten witnesses into silence? Black-Eyed Kids are the juvenile form. A few years ago, an accident breached one of their brood nests or spawning chambers or wherever the Men in Black come from, and about a dozen or so larval Men in Black stumbled blinkingly out into the sunlight. (Despite the name “Men” in Black, the Black-Eyed Kids are equally divided between boys, girls, and androgyne children.) They really do just want someone to take them home, or at least make contact with whatever passes for a controlling intelligence among the Men in Black. The problem is that MIBs are specifically designed to give off a psychic field of fear, revulsion, and menace, the better to intimidate people into silence, and the kids don’t know how to turn that off. Every interaction with them thus becomes a horrific experience, and the kids grow more and more frustrated as their simple requests for aid go unheeded. If they ever find someone who can overcome their fear and actually get them home, though, it’s anyone’s guess how the adult Men in Black would react. Mental Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 4, Resolve 3 Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2 Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 3, Composure 1 Mental Skills: Occult 1 Physical Skills: Athletics 1, Stealth 3 Social Skills: Intimidation 3, Subterfuge 2 Merits: Pusher, Striking Looks •

Horrors 149 Potency: 1 Willpower: 4 Virtue: Determined Vice: Impatient Aspiration: To get home. Initiative: 4 Defense: 4 Speed: 9 Health: 6 Bans: Black-Eyed Kids cannot enter a home or vehicle without being invited. Banes: Salt Dread Powers: Hypnotic Gaze, Madness and Terror, Surprise Entrance The Horde Low, incessant moaning Background: When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. That’s how the old saying goes, and whether it’s true or not, sometimes the earth splits, coffins crack, and the unquiet dead crawl out of the ground to prey on the living. Individually, they’re barely any threat: slow and stumbling, with scarcely animal-level intelligence. The problem is that they’re never encountered individually, and a dozen or more of the things can drag down even the strongest by sheer weight of numbers. Sometimes there’s a guiding intelligence behind the Horde: a witch might raise up an army of undead servants, or a demon might lay a curse on a community. More often, though, the dead simply rise and shamble, hungry for flesh, with no discernible motivation. Maybe the town’s cemetery is cursed ground, or maybe a virus escapes from a military transport truck. Sometimes it just happens, and all you can hope to do is hole up and survive. Description: The classic zombie horde is made up of a mass of shambling, moaning corpses, usually in various stages of decomposition and often bearing obviously-fatal wounds. They wander aimlessly, shuffling about with no clear purpose until they scent fresh, living meat. Once they become aware of prey, they might burst into frantic activity, like a crocodile, or they might never vary their plodding, inexorable pace; but either way, if you let them get close, if you let your guard down for even a second, you’re dead. That’s the classic zombie horde, but with just a few small changes to dice pools and Dread Powers, the Horde pulls double duty as modern “fast” zombies, a hive of monstrous insects, or a pack of weird, wormlike hunters from beneath the ground. Maybe your Horde is the result of a virus that drives living people to phenomenal heights of rage, or maybe it’s some swarm of Precambrian horrors unearthed from an underground vault. Storytelling Hints: The trick to using the Horde is that it’s not really a “monster” in the same sense that a murderous